


Raspberry Cliché

by BlueMorpho (OldToadWoman)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Angel Sex, Canon Compliant, Canon Compliant through Season 10, Cuddling & Snuggling, Eventual Happy Ending, First Time, Humor, Love, M/M, Magic, Oblivious Dean, POV Alternating, POV Castiel, POV Dean Winchester, POV Original Character, POV Sam Winchester, Romance, Sam has to herd cats, Sex, Sleepy Cuddles, Slow Build, True Love, casefic, molecules, mostly gen and then not, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-20 13:02:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 35,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4788215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldToadWoman/pseuds/BlueMorpho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys are investigating reports of spontaneous amnesia, but before they can figure out what's going on, Castiel himself falls victim. And a blank-slate, baggage-less, amnesiac Cas would rather go clubbing than help solve the case. Meanwhile, Dean falls head-over-heels in love with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl he never knew he needed and Sam can't seem to convince him that he's under a spell. (Sam struggles to keep Cas and Dean from banging complete strangers while they're not in their right minds. No icky consent issues, I promise, and I swear it will all work out before it's over.)</p><p>[Rated "Explicit" only for the final chapters. The story is pretty gen up until the end so if you read for plot (?) you can bail before the finale and it'll still be a full story. Note that the chapter count is artificially high as I chose to start a new chapter for each POV switch. Some chapters are subsequently very short.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Southwest Michigan …

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline here is vaguely post-season 10 (with associated spoilers), but with no attempt to figure out how they'll deal with the season cliffhanger. Assume they're somehow back to investigating monster-of-the-week stuff for this one.
> 
> This _will_ end up a Cas/Dean story. I swear. You just have to have faith. The "Explicit" rating won't come into play until the very end though.
> 
> (Also, beware of story spoilers in comments.)

Sam had to admit that the case felt like a dead end. Dean was ready to dismiss the whole thing as not being their kind of job. Sam's gut still said magic, but it was just possible that what the town needed were a couple of _real_ CDC agents. Or maybe DEA agents. Spontaneous amnesia. How weird was that? Their top three suspects were witchcraft, some kind of contagious psychosis, or 'shrooms.

"I don't think drugs are actually likely though," Sam said. "One of the victims is a second grader."

"You think kids can't get drugs? Kids get into everything. If mommy and daddy have a stash of happy pills, the kids'll find it. Might not even be trying to get high, they just see something that looks like candy and … _Oh, hey! Candy!_ "

It took Sam a moment to realize that Dean wasn't quoting hypothetical children. Sam was several strides down the sidewalk before he noticed he'd lost Dean _and_ Cas and he had to backtrack to the shop window of Trixie's Pixie Licks. And, yes, inside, there were Cas and Dean.

Sam sighed and gave up and walked in the shop. _Kid in a candy store_ wasn't even a _metaphor_. It was just truth. Dean practically had his face pressed to the display case. Cas was staring at a taffy pulling machine, seemingly hypnotized by the process.

"Welcome!" an elderly woman said brightly. "Would you like to try a free sample?"

Sam couldn't even ask what the samples were of before Dean had a tiny plastic spoon in each hand.

"Dean!" Sam chided and then turned to the woman. "I'm sorry. He's a pig."

The woman just smiled. She had a big halo of fluffy white-blonde hair and bore a distinct resemblance to Betty White. It was hard not to like her instantly. "Oh, it's all right, dear," she said. "You just let everybody know that the best sweets in town are made by Trixie. Word of mouth is so important to a new business."

"You just opened?" Sam asked conversationally, watching Dean snitch a third sample from her tray.

"Two months ago," she said, with a proud tilt of her chin. "We have candies and cupcakes and cookies and ice cream and taffy." She pointed to the machine that still had Castiel transfixed. "And these are my very own hand-made sorbet flavors," she said pointing to the plastic spoon in Dean's mouth.

"Dean, would you like me to buy you some candy?" Sam asked. He was aiming for condescending, but Dean just nodded happily and started picking out assorted candies.

"You're Trixie?" Dean asked.

"I am," she said.

"And the name _Pixie Licks_?" Dean leered and winked and Trixie blushed.

 _Good God_ , Dean was actually flirting with an octogenarian. Dean clearly didn't know how _not_ to flirt. Sam smacked Dean on the arm and shook his head at him when he got Dean's attention.

"This place is awesome," Dean said. "The only thing that would make it better is if they had pie."

"Well, wouldn't you know it. I just took a tray of peach tarts out of the oven. They're cooling in back. Shall I bring them out for you?"

Dean said that would be awesome and, apropos of nothing, Cas said that taffy being stretched into a lighter aerated form to be sold for consumption by the masses could be seen as a metaphor for the human condition. Trixie patted Castiel cautiously on the shoulder. "That's very poetic, dear. I'll just go get your tarts."

Sam paid for a paper bag of assorted taffies and a half dozen tarts and then dragged Dean out before he could spot something else he desperately had to have.

"Can we get back to the job?" Sam asked, steering Dean back down the sidewalk. "I was thinking that we could interview the coworkers of that insurance salesman. He was at work when it happened, so his case is one of the few instances with witnesses."

"Where the hell is he going?" Dean asked, pointing to Castiel who was wandering down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.

Castiel did a sidewalk waltz with a woman with pink hair, each trying to let the other pass by stepping to the side, but mirroring the other's movements too well to be helpful. Trixie watched from her storefront and giggled. They made two more false starts before the woman stopped and held up a single hand in surrender, car keys dangling from the keyring around one finger, the other hand clutching her coffee cup. Castiel walked around her and into the coffee shop she had just exited.

"Seriously," Dean repeated. "Where the hell is he going?"

Sam shrugged. "He'll catch up later. Let's go talk to the people at the insurance place."

"How do we solve a case where none of the victims can even remember _who they are_ let alone what happened to them?" Dean asked sulkily.

"Yeah, well, that would be just one of the sucky things about having amnesia," Sam pointed out. "In fact, this could be much more widespread than we realize. How many others might have amnesia, but haven't reported it to anyone? What if there are other kids younger than the second grader who don't have the vocabularies to describe it? Or imagine an elderly person being so afraid they have dementia that they don't want to admit they can't remember their name."

Dean didn't respond and Sam glanced over to see Dean staring at the woman with pink hair. Her hair wasn't entirely pink. It was light brown, long enough to fall just past her bare shoulders. Only one side was pink, more of a dark magenta really, curling in amongst the brown strands. She was staring up at Dean with wide brown eyes. Sam had a feeling that he could do jumping jacks in between them and neither would break eye contact.

Sam just wanted to smack Dean upside the head. Yeah, she was pretty, but she wasn't _that_ pretty. Or, okay, maybe she was that pretty, but Dean was a pretty-girl magnet and there was nothing about this one to set her apart from all the others.

Sam tapped Dean on the shoulder. "Dean, come on."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," Dean said, still sounding distracted. He gave the woman one last parting smile. God, the man really _could not_ avoid flirting if his life depended on it.

They turned to walk away, but the woman kept pace with them.

"So I was thinking, we could split up to cover more ground. Do you want to interview the school nurse or the insurance…" He trailed off when he realized it was pointless.

Sam figured that the woman likely just happened to be headed the same direction anyway, but Dean kept glancing over his shoulder at her. He clearly wasn't listening to Sam at all.

Sam finally stepped to the side and pulled Dean off the sidewalk as well so that she could pass. However, instead of continuing down the path, she stopped alongside them.

"Is there something we can do for you, miss?" Sam asked.

"Actually, I was thinking perhaps I could help _you_ ," she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you discussing amnesia cases."

"Do you know one of the amnesia victims?" Dean asked.

She nodded. "You sounded eager to talk to witnesses. I believe I could be of assistance in that area."

"I'm Dean," Dean said reaching out to shake her hand. She blinked at her coffee cup for a moment before switching it to her left hand so they could shake hands and then shifted it back again, keyring jingling throughout the process. "This is my brother Sam," he added, apparently completely forgetting that they had a cover that did _not_ involve being relatives.

"I'm pleased to meet you both. I'm Fibby."

"Fibby?" Sam repeated, not sure he'd heard that correctly.

"Or possibly it's pronounced Fye-bye?" she said uncertainly. She then showed Dean her coffee cup where "FIBI" was scrawled on the side with a black marker.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. "Do you have any i.d. on you?" Sam asked.

"Of course, I should have thought of that. Would you mind?" She held her coffee cup out to Dean so that she could look through her pockets. She finally found a driver's license in the outside pocket of her messenger bag. She rolled her eyes after reading it. "Of course. My name is Phoebe Cooper. A common phonetic mistake. Baristas are known for humorous spelling inaccuracies. There are websites dedicated to it."

"Are you okay?" Dean asked, slipping into hover-mode. "Do you need to sit down or anything?"

"I feel fine. I just … I couldn't remember where I parked," she said holding up her car keys. "That is, I have my keys in my hand, and it seemed as if I was walking toward those parked cars so I assume I was going to my car, but I couldn't remember which one it was. Or where I was going. And then I overheard you discussing amnesia and I suddenly realized that I didn't know … anything really."

"Dean, she _just_ walked out of that coffee shop with the coffee. She had to have known her name when she ordered, right?"

They quickly returned to the coffee shop with Phoebe trailing after them. Castiel was sitting inside drinking an extra-large cup of coffee and absently rubbing at a sticky spot on the lapel of his coat where Dean had spilled syrup at breakfast.

"Dude, you okay?" Dean asked Cas who was looking even more cranky and distracted than usual.

"Fine," Cas said. "Just … rough night last night. You know how it is."

Sam ignored them and went to question the employees at the counter. Dean searched for hex bags while Phoebe followed him around the coffee shop like a baby duckling.

The barista who was making the coffee said she recognized Phoebe as a regular. She knew she came in often and ordered something different each time. Sometimes she got her coffee to go. Sometimes she sat at a corner table and scribbled in a notebook. That was about all the information she had. She didn't know anything else about the woman. The clerk at the cash register who had taken Phoebe's order, and subsequently misspelled her name on the cup, was new and they both apologized in a half-hearted way for the misspelling, clearly not caring that much, but assuming Sam's questions were a form of complaint. Sam thanked them for their time.

They regrouped back at the table in the corner where Cas had been sitting earlier. Dean shook his head to indicate he hadn't found anything without letting Phoebe in on what they'd been searching for. "Cas wandered off again," Dean said, waving vaguely at the door. "Why did he even come with us if he wasn't going to help?"

Sam shrugged and relayed the lack of information from his interview.

"So, you knew your name just a few minutes ago when you ordered coffee, but by the time you walked outside to get into your car, you had a full-blown case of soap-opera amnesia."

"Soap-opera amnesia?"

Sam glanced at Dean to get a read on how much information he thought they should share with Phoebe, but Dean was just staring at her like an idiot, so Sam was left to make the decision himself.

"We have about a dozen cases of people developing sudden memory loss, but with no signs of the kind of brain damage usually associated with memory loss. In the real world, when someone suffers amnesia it's not usually a clean divide between personal memories and functional memories. Maybe they still remember their name, but not what year it is. Or they vividly remember their childhood, but not the last forty years. Or they've forgotten everything including how to speak and walk. Yet this batch of amnesia victims has conveniently forgotten _only_ their personal memories, just like a character on a soap opera."

"Not entirely true," Dean said. "Some of them have had other symptoms, been a little loopy et cetera, but mainly, yeah, classic soap opera amnesia. So, you're feeling okay, though?"

Phoebe narrowed her eyes a little as if she were considering, but she never looked away from Dean. "I feel great," she insisted.

The goo-goo eyes between Dean and Phoebe made Sam nauseated. "So … the president?" Sam asked.

"Obama."

"Six times seven?"

"The answer to the Ultimate Question: forty-two." She smiled proudly at her own joke. "That's a reference to _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ by Douglas Adams, which was actually a radio play before it became a popular series of books."

Sam had never liked it when people stopped to explain their own jokes, but Dean had the same expression on his face that he'd had in the candy store when he realized Trixie sold root-beer barrels.

"The price of a gallon of milk?" Sam asked.

"Well, that would depend on several factors. Whether the milk was being purchased in a convenience store, large chain grocery store, local organic market… and, of course, whether the retailers were offering any sales incentives."

"Ha!" Dean barked, "She owned you, bitch."

"Jerk," Sam muttered under his breath.

"There's no call to be mean to each other," Phoebe chided.

"We're brothers," Dean said. "Being mean to each other is like our job."

Phoebe nodded. "I know how that goes."

"You have brothers?"

"I don't know. I don't really know why I said that."

"So, I think we should maybe take you to the hospital to get checked out," Sam said. Both Phoebe _and_ Dean looked crestfallen at the suggestion. "We have several other interviews to conduct, but _then we'll come back_ and check to see how you're doing."

"But I feel _fine_. And you said you wanted to spread out to cover more ground. _I_ could interview the school nurse while you interview the insurance people."

Dean convinced Phoebe to interview the hospital staff while they split up and hit the school and the insurance office.

The insurance people turned out to be a waste of time. Dean reported that all anyone knew was that the dude announced that he couldn't remember what he was doing there and everyone sort of figured he'd had a stroke or something.

Sam got slightly more information at the school. The school's front office initially said much the same thing and that they suspected the girl may have hit her head or had a reaction to some kind of medication—and they were more than a little defensive about pointing out that none of these things had happened on school property. They wouldn't let Sam talk directly with any of the students, even claiming to be an official from the Center for Disease Control, but the girl's teacher relayed that other students had said the girl had been acting strangely all week, withdrawn and disinterested in playing with her friends. Sam reassessed the onset of the child's symptoms. It was possible the girl lost her memory several days before she admitted it to an adult.

Sam could spot a handful of superficial coincidences between a few of the victims. A school superintendent had visited the school the previous Thursday before she herself developed amnesia. A car salesman developed symptoms a day after one of the dealership's employees in the car wash was arrested for public drunkenness. That man had also claimed memory loss as part of his defense, but he had already been deported on unrelated immigration issues before they'd had a chance to interview him. Several victims shopped at the same grocery store where a cashier developed amnesia in the middle of an evening shift. But the amnesia cases had so far been limited to a small area south of downtown so it seemed only natural that the residents' lives would overlap from time to time. Despite the small geographical radius, Sam and Dean hadn't been able to find anything that stood out that all of the amnesia victims had in common.

They stopped by the hospital to check on Phoebe, but there was no sign of her. The nurse at the admissions desk insisted there wasn't even a "Phoebe Cooper" in the system.

"Are you sure you didn't see her? She's hard to miss. About yea-high," Dean held out his hand in the roughly 5'10" range which Sam thought was overshooting the mark by several inches. He wouldn't have guessed her at much more than 5'6". "She was wearing this light green tank top. Bare shoulders. She had this necklace with stars and moons on it. And a flowy skirt with all different colors and beaded sandals and her toenails were painted different colors too."

Sam gawked at Dean as he proceeded to describe every inch of the woman's body to a very disinterested nurse.

"She had _pink_ hair," Sam interrupted.

"Oh, _her_ ," the nurse said. "Why didn't you say you were looking for the woman from the CDC? I thought you were looking for a patient."

Sam sighed wearily, but Dean looked _proud_.

"Is our _colleague_ here?" Sam asked.

"No, she left over an hour ago."

"Fabulous," Dean muttered. "They're _all_ wandering off on us."

They hadn't heard from Cas all day, now that Dean mentioned it. Sam pulled out his phone and dialed.

There was a tentative "Hello?" at the other end, obscured somewhat by excessive background noise. It sounded like Cas was in a busy diner or something.

"Hey, man, we missed your help with the job today. What gives?"

"Oh, wow, sorry. Didn't you get my text? Yeah, I'm not going to make it tomorrow either. So, um, see you Monday. Bye."

Sam stared at his phone for a moment. "Okay, that was really weird. Did _you_ get a text from Cas?"

Dean checked his phone to be sure. "Nope. Nothing."

"He said he texted us. Something's up and it looks like he's skipping out on us for the whole weekend."

"Let's go find Phoebe," Dean said. "Cas can take care of himself. It's not like he'd just blow us off to go bar hopping."


	2. Meanwhile at a bar across town …

He was pretty sure this was the weirdest hangover he had ever had, even though he couldn't technically remember having had another hangover at all.

The driver's license in his wallet said his name was James Novak and he lived in Pontiac, Illinois. He had no idea where Pontiac was, but he had an unshakable belief that it wasn't anywhere near _here_ so he was at a loss as to what to do next.

The phone call asking why he hadn't shown up for work today had thrown him. If he were this far from home, that sort of implied he was on vacation, didn't it? Then again, the license was expired, so maybe he didn't live in Illinois anymore.

He thought about calling the guy back. He was in the phone's contact list as "Sam" which meant he wasn't calling from a work phone. Maybe they were actually friends and Sam would totally understand if he told him that he'd gotten so wasted last night that he couldn't even remember where he _lived_. On the other hand, Sam might just be his asshole manager who'd have him pissing into a cup at the first hint of illegal drug use. The fact that he could not for the life of him remember what he'd taken meant that telling Sam the truth was probably a really bad idea.

"Another," he told the bartender, handing over his credit card. The card, at least, was not expired and he could only hope that he wasn't close to maxing it out.

"Another Long Island?" the bartender asked.

If he wasn't mistaken, there was a hint of judgment in the man's voice. Were Long Island Ice Teas not sufficiently manly? Screw that. He didn't see any reason why you couldn't get drunk on something that tasted _good_. "Yes, please."

"Hey, there," a woman said, sliding onto the barstool next to him despite the bar being half-empty this early on a Thursday evening. "I'm Stephanie."

"James," he said.

"Nice to meet you, Jim."

That didn't sound right at all. "Actually, I prefer Jamie."

"Like Jaime Lannister?"

"I was thinking like Jamie Lee Curtis, but I suppose it doesn't matter how you spell it. And you? Are you a Stephanie or a Stephie or a Stevie?"

She shrugged amiably. "Pick one."

"Stevie," he decided. "I always liked Stevie Nicks."

The bartender set down another Long Island Ice Tea and handed him back his credit card.

"So how about buying a girl a drink?" she asked, playfully leaning into his shoulder.

"Ha!" he snorted, pocketing the credit card. "Does that line actually work?"

"Excuse me!" All friendliness had gone out of her voice.

"You just go up to people and ask them for free stuff?"

"I happen to be a very desirable woman," Stevie said, glaring at him.

"I didn't say you weren't. But, hell, _I'm_ pretty. Maybe you could buy _me_ something."

"There's no need to be rude."

"I wasn't intending to be rude. I'm sure most guys think you're like super hot or whatever, but you just don't happen to be my type and, based on my clothing," he pointed to the maple-scented stain on his coat, "I think it's safe to say that I can't afford to get other people drunk. I'm not even sure I can afford to get myself drunk, but we all make our life choices."

"Oh, and who exactly _is_ your type?"

And Jamie Novak didn't know very many things, but he knew he probably should have shut up a few minutes earlier.

Stevie pointed at a buxom woman at the end of the bar. "Her? Is that your type? Or maybe her? Is she your type?" She gestured at a tiny woman in platform shoes which looked both uncomfortable and dangerous. "What exactly is it about me that isn't your type?"

It was the first time all day that Jamie had considered the idea, which meant it was effectively the first time in living memory that he'd considered the idea. He glanced around. It was an early crowd of depressive alcoholics. The kind of people that rolled in right after work because they needed a few drinks before they could go home. The fun crowd wasn't going to show up for a few more hours. Only one person caught his eye. The woman in the platform shoes was hanging off of the shoulder of a tall man in an out-of-place cowboy hat and a red plaid shirt. He was telling bad jokes and she was giggling as if they were hysterically funny.

Jamie nodded in their direction.

"Oh, Miss Platform Shoes there is your type? Ugh. She looks like she's twelve."

"Not her," Jamie said "Him. I'll take one of those in something slightly less heterosexual. Ideally with a better sense of humor."

Stevie softened immediately. "Oh, honey, you're in the wrong bar."

She ended up calling a friend who joined them half an hour later. His name was Matt or Mark or something. Jamie hadn't paid that much attention. Matt-or-Mark wasn't actually his type either, which seemed to offend Stevie just as much as his original rejection.

"Oh, my God, what's the problem? You like guys. He likes guys. You're both hot. Go for it!"

Matt-or-Mark rolled his eyes. "Stephanie, I swear, you are an entitled white girl stereotype. There's more to matchmaking than 'You both have penises! Now kiss!' Can we get to know each other first?"

Which was really the fundamental problem because, beyond the name and address on an expired driver's license and the fact that he smelled like maple syrup, he really didn't know anything about himself. He ended up making up a story about being in town visiting his cousin Rachel and her new baby, but needing to get out of the house because her husband was super annoying. And he almost said that her husband's name was Ross and quickly changed it, but the next name that popped into his head was Chandler which was hardly better, so he stuttered out "Chad" instead, which, yeah, that worked. That totally sounded like a good douche name.

So, he bitched about Rachel and Chad and their stinky baby and how he had to pretend it was cute even though it just looked like Alfred Hitchcock in a onesie and Matt-or-Mark and Stevie tsked sympathetically and Stevie kept buying them drinks because she apparently hadn't quite given up on the "Now kiss!" thing. Admittedly Matt-or-Mark got a little cuter with each round.

Eventually he didn't have to make up any more stories because Stevie got more vocal with each round as well.

"Look at how messed up my nails are," Stevie wailed. "Look at them! I can't believe I paid money for this crap."

"I thought you loved your manic-a … mani-a … finger-lady," Matt-or-Mark said.

Jamie Novak's brain was so busy trying to work out what a finger-lady was, that he almost didn't catch the key part of Stevie's reply.

"… just because she has amnesia, she can't do my nails? I don't think you need your memory for that, right? But, no, she's off indefinitely and I had to get my nails done by that pimply one who always messes it up."

"Oh, Steph, consider yourself lucky. My dog groomer got that, like _right in the middle_ of trimming my Sasha. Suddenly had no idea what he was doing and now Sasha looks like she's supposed to be in an 80s pop-punk band."

"Wait? What? People are coming down with amnesia like the flu?" He was suddenly re-thinking his whole _I must have taken the wrong pill_ theory.

"Oh, that's right, you're from out of town," Matt-or-Mark said. "Didn't your cousin mention it? Frankly, if I had a new baby, I think I'd go live with relatives out of town. This is some spooky shit. People are just getting amnesia. A dozen or more now. I, for one, am not drinking the water until this is over." He raised his Cuba Libre in the air to illustrate his point.

Jamie debated pointing out that ice cubes were technically water, but opted to let it slide. "Excuse me," he said instead, pulling his phone back out. It took him a moment to navigate through the menu, which was a little blurrier at this point in the evening, but he finally found the contact list and dialed Sam.

When Sam answered, he opted to keep it brief. "Hi. Are we friends?"

"Yeah, man," was the hesitant reply. "Of course we're friends."

"Are we _good_ friends?"

"We are the best of friends," Sam reassured him, though his voice sounded a little impatient.

"Are we _please-come-and-get-me-because-I'm-too-drunk-to-remember-where-I-live_ friends?"

"Holy crap, where are you?!"

He handed the phone to Stevie to give Sam directions and then he took a nap on the bar feeling very relieved that someone else could sort this out.

He must have actually nodded off because it felt like only a few seconds later when Matt-or-Mark poked his shoulder and said, "Are those your friends?"

He looked up to see two tall men and a pink-haired woman standing at the entrance of the bar, scanning the room as if they were looking for someone.

"Oh, hell, forget what I said about the cowboy earlier. I'll take one of those."

Matt-or-Mark nodded. "Me too, baby. Me too."


	3. Earlier back at the hospital …

Phoebe Cooper had been about to buy a notebook at the hospital gift shop, but when she was searching through her bag for cash, she discovered that she already had one.

There was a shopping list on one page. She was apparently out of milk, eggs, bread, raspberry jam, and beer. All of the other items were generic, but "beer, MOLSON CANADIAN, CANS" was spelled out in capital letters and "cans" was underlined. Clearly that was important.

The next page was a to-do list. _Pay electric bill_ and _pick up dry cleaning_ were already crossed off, which was particularly convenient since she didn't know how much the electric bill was or where her dry cleaners might be. The remaining items were _groceries_ , _vacuum_ , _dishes_ , _fill gas tank_ , _hide dildo_ , _hide weed_ (those last two items also being underlined), _gift for Olivia_ (with "???" written beside it), and somewhat ominously _REMEMBER TUESDAY 10:42_ in all capitals, underlined three times, and with several exclamation points.

It was highly unlikely that she'd made a note to herself to remember that Tuesday existed. It was a logical conclusion that something important was happening _on_ Tuesday at 10:42. Something so important that it was vital she not forget, but something that she assumed didn't need to be explained. The note did not indicate whether it was 10:42 in the morning or 10:42 at night. Presumably she had expected to remember that as well.

It was bothersome.

Several pages of the notebook were filled with doodles and disjointed phrases that might have been poetry.

She turned to a blank page and, pen in hand, set off to interview the hospital staff. She was not stupid—willfully or otherwise—and she knew perfectly well that "interview the doctors" had been Dean's way of convincing her to seek medical attention. But she felt fine and, really, helping Sam and Dean find the cause of the amnesia outbreak would be much more useful.

She introduced herself to the intake nurse as an assistant to the CDC—which was not technically lying because if she was assisting them, that made her their "assistant"—and asked if the man had been on duty when any of the amnesia victims were brought in. He turned over the front desk to someone else and led her back to talk with a series of nurses and doctors who had all treated one or more of the victims.

She knew that Dean would be upset if she avoided a medical examination altogether, so she cleverly came up with an idea that she was quite proud of. "Walk me through your process. Imagine that I, just for instance, were an amnesia victim. What sort of examination would you put me through?"

Thus Phoebe Cooper was walked through the process of having her head examined.

"And if I actually _had_ been one of the amnesia victims, would there be anything different in your results?" she asked the doctor, a woman with eyes that looked twenty-years older than the rest of her face.

The doctor sighed and cleaned her bifocals on her sleeve. "No, that's what's so frustrating about this. All the patients appear to be perfectly healthy or, that is, any health problems they do have are clearly pre-existing and seem unrelated. No head injuries at all. The toxicology results have been unremarkable. A couple have had narcotics in their system, but the same would be true of a random sampling of the general public, and none of those were drugs known for effects this severe. I mean, you don't smoke a joint and forget your native language do you?"

"You've had a case like that?" Phoebe scribbled _Language?!_ in her notebook. "I was given to understand that victims were all exhibiting the symptoms of 'soap opera' amnesia without the more severe memory loss seen in stroke or brain injury patients. As far as I had heard, everyone could still speak English."

The doctor hesitated. "I can't discuss specific cases without a release form. I know you said it was supposed to be sent over—"

Phoebe surmised that this was a reference to a promise Sam and Dean must have made earlier.

"—but the paperwork hasn't been received yet. So, without discussing any names or details … We had a Filipino woman who could still speak English, but that's her _second_ language. She not only had completely lost the ability to understand Tagalog, she even mispronounced the _word_. She reported that her son was upset she couldn't speak _Tag-a-log_. We also had a Mexican man in here who spoke only very broken Spanish even though he supposedly lived in Mexico until quite recently."

"I fully understand your limitations regarding patient privacy, but would it be possible for you to pass along _my_ number to any of these patients? Interviewing them directly might prove useful."

"I can give your number to our patients. I can't guarantee that any of them will actually call you. And, unfortunately, the guy who barely speaks Spanish has already been deported back to the country he doesn't speak the language of." The doctor shook her head and muttered under her breath and Phoebe could imagine where all the bags under her eyes came from.

She left the hospital with several pages in her notebook filled up with names of hospital staff and their observations. Because many victims had been alone when their symptoms first presented, there were often no witnesses to help compare what they might have eaten or drunk or inhaled immediately prior, but in those instances where the patient's activities were known, there was no obvious pattern. This would have been so much easier if everyone had gotten sick at the town clam bake, but obviously the CDC wouldn't have been called in to investigate if it had been that simple.

She walked back to the coffee shop, confident that her car must be nearby and that she'd be able to figure out which one it was eventually since she had the keys. It was a forty-minute walk and before she was even halfway there, she received her first phone call from the wife of one of the victims. The woman was more than eager to tell her story if it might help, so Phoebe arranged to meet her for lunch.

Her car, when she found it, was a Honda hybrid that looked a lot like Kermit the Frog's head and her dry cleaning was laid out neatly in the backseat. 

The most difficult task she had faced so far that day was figuring out how to slip into the driver's seat without becoming hopelessly entangled in her skirt. Other people always looked so graceful in skirts. It didn't seem like it should be that difficult. After two tries, she gave up and simply hitched the skirt up to her thighs and piled the excess fabric in her lap.

Her phone's GPS directed her to her appointment and she was halfway there before she thought to wonder if it was safe for her to be driving. She certainly seemed to remember how to operate a motor vehicle though, so it obviously wasn't a problem.

She pulled up into the driveway of a large plantation-style home that would have been more fitting on a larger parcel of land. As it was, only the driveway separated it from its nearest neighbor.

Mrs. Richardson answered the door herself even though there was a servant clearly visible behind her. She greeted Phoebe as "Dr. Cooper" which made her feel slightly guilty, but she didn't correct her. The servant was directed to serve lunch on the back patio and Phoebe was introduced to Mr. Richardson with, "That's him."

"Hey," Mr. Richardson said, bobbing his head in greeting. He was sitting at their grand piano scrutinizing sheet music and plunking out one note at a time.

"Dr. Cooper, you have _got_ to find a cure. This whole experience has been so traumatic for Kenneth."

"I feel fine," Kenneth Richardson said. 

Phoebe wasn't entirely sure, due to the irregular rhythm and occasional accidental double-key presses, but she believed the tune he was attempting to play was _God Save the Queen_.

"He's in shock," Mrs. Richardson insisted.

Lunch was served and Kenneth had to be nagged to leave the piano. The patio overlooked an unnaturally green lawn and an inground swimming pool. "You have a very lovely home," Phoebe said.

"I know! Right?" Kenneth said, to his wife's obvious horror. "Oh, my God, you have to see the master bathroom! You'll shit yourself!"

"Kenneth!"

"Pardon my French," Kenneth added, but then leaned in and whispered to Phoebe, "We're fucking _loaded_!"

" _Kenneth_!"

"You know what your problem is," he told his wife as he picked up his sandwich. "You take all of this for granted. Take a moment to think about how great having this much money is."

"I _do_ appreciate our standard of living, which is why I _don't_ appreciate you trying to give it all away!"

Kenneth scoffed. "Please. A drop in the bucket. I'm not giving it all away. Trust me," he added for Phoebe's benefit, "I'm as selfish as the next guy. Mansion, pool, hot tub, grand piano… I'm keeping it all. But a second house in the mountains that you only visit once a year?"

"We are _not_ putting the cabin on the market and that's final! I'm in the process of getting an injunction to keep him from selling any more of our property and giving away our money. He _sold_ his grandmother's necklace and gave _all_ of the money from it to some alleged charity."

"It was hideous. Even you agreed that you wouldn't be caught dead wearing it. And the youth center is not an _'alleged'_ charity. It's a vital part of the community. Three things my father always told me. One, life is short; smile while you still have teeth. Two, never vote for a man that you wouldn't buy a car from. And three, the best investment anyone can make is in the education and nurturing of the next generation."

"Your father has never said any such thing!"

He shrugged. To Phoebe he said, "The youth center had asked the Board for a donation and the skinflints only offered them $2,000."

"Well, I imagine that $2,000 could—"

"Meanwhile the next item on the agenda was the quarterly investor's meeting which they planned to have catered with an open bar, the total cost likely to run five times that. How can a person make business decisions like that and still sleep at night?"

"You shouldn't be making _any_ business decisions in your current state!" She turned to Phoebe and added, "Poor Kenneth serves on several boards as well as being the full-time CEO of his own company. It's very demanding at the best of times and he's still trying to work even with his _condition_. I insisted he stay home from work today."

He laughed. "Please, my job is so easy. People pitch ideas to me. I say 'yea' or 'nay'. They aren't even difficult decisions."

"So your memory loss hasn't affected your business skills in any way?" Phoebe asked.

"I had amnesia for over a week before anyone even noticed."

"Including you, Mrs. Richardson?"

"I was upset he started sleeping in the guest room. I had no idea what I had done to offend him, but it never occurred to me he had amnesia. It _certainly_ never occurred to me that he might have amnesia and _not tell me about it_."

He shrugged. " _Technically_ , she was a complete stranger."

"But you didn't tell anyone, not even your doctor?"

He looked a little chagrined as he admitted, "I guess I was just embarrassed. I can't really explain why. I was just afraid people would think I was crazy and lock me away or something. That's probably not logical, but it was my first instinct."

"I'm sure you've been asked this before, but do you know if you ate or drank anything before the onset of symptoms?" Thinking of her own experience, she added, "Even something mundane, coffee for instance."

"You know that's the odd thing. I had coffee at the office _later_ that morning and several people commented on it being unusual. Apparently, Janet here had just started us on this cleansing detox diet. It seems I'd been drinking nothing but bottled water and eating rabbit food from home all week."

Phoebe chewed the last of her sandwich and considered this. After a moment's thought she asked, "Mr. Richardson, what can you tell me about your father?"

"My father?"

"What's he like?"

"I have no idea."

"Is he living or dead?"

Kenneth looked to Janet, who answered for him, "His father is retired in Florida."

Phoebe rolled her eyes. She didn't care about Kenneth Richardson's father. She was trying to find out what he _remembered_ about his father.

"But you spoke about him in the past tense," she pointed out. "And you quoted him as if you remembered his advice."

"Huh. It just popped into my head as the sort of thing a father would say, I guess."

Phoebe scribbled that into her notebook. "May I ask another question? Your piano playing …" She turned to Janet Richardson and redirected the question to her, "Would you say that your husband's _skills_ have deteriorated with his memory loss? His rendition of 'God Save the Queen' was somewhat—"

"That was 'My Country Tis of Thee'," Janet Richardson insisted, somewhat affronted. "And, no, Kenneth never touched the piano before. Neither of us actually play. The piano was the decorator's idea."

"I see," Phoebe said. Phoebe didn't see at all. "Perhaps you could then sell the piano and give those proceeds to the youth center as well?"

The interview was ended abruptly as the Richardsons apparently had some very important things that they needed to be doing, but luckily by then Phoebe had a message from another amnesia victim who was willing to discuss his case.

She was in the middle of her interview with a dog groomer, when she got another phone call. However, rather than a new number, the call displayed with the contact name "Jennifer".

_Oh, dear._ She had absolutely no idea who Jennifer was.

"Hello?"

"Feebs, where _are_ you? You can't be late for your shift like this! This is twice in one week. David is going to have a cow when he realizes you're not here. I can only cover for you for so long."

"Oh," Phoebe realized, "I have a job."

"Oh, my God, Feebs. Yes, you have a job, but not for much longer at this rate. I know you're freaking out about Tuesday, but you still have to show up to work!"

"Of course. What's the address?"

"Are you high?!"

"You've heard about the amnesia cases in town?" Phoebe asked.

"Fuck!"

"So what's the address?"

"Fuck!"

Jennifer gave her the address to a retail clothing store not far from the coffee shop where Phoebe had experienced her first memory. They both agreed that it would be easier to just go through the motions rather than explain the situation to the manager David. Phoebe was apparently already on thin ice.

It wasn't a great day, but Jennifer assured her that David would have yelled at her just as often even if she _had_ known what she was doing so it was apparently fine. She promised to show up on time the next day and then belatedly remembered to ask Jennifer what time that was.

By the time they closed the shop at 7pm, she had several worried messages from Dean. She looked forward to telling him what she'd learned that day.


	4. Earlier  …

"I can't believe you didn't even get her phone number!" Dean growled, as angry at himself as he was at Sam really. How could they just drop Phoebe off at the hospital without either of them asking for her phone number? The woman had _amnesia_ and they didn't even know if she had family nearby to look out for her.

"I thought she'd still be here when we got back," Sam said. "I also thought you'd gotten her to understand she was supposed to be getting looked at _as a patient_."

"Oh, she _understood_ ," Dean said, unable to hide an appreciative smile. Sneaky was a trait he kind of respected even though he didn't like to admit it. Phoebe was smarter than she looked.

"Anyway, I'm getting a headache. I need to eat. What's say we grab some food and head back to the motel? I need to go over my notes with a clear head. I keep thinking there's a pattern with these dates, but I can't explain the outliers."

"Dude, we can't just abandon Phoebe."

"We're not abandoning her. Technically, she abandoned us."

"What if she's lost?"

"Dude, seriously? You're grasping at straws now. Just admit you think she's hot."

"Don't be crude. She's a beautiful woman. I am not blind. But this isn't about that. She's … she's …"

"Dean," Sam said, seeming to take a serious tone. "Are you in wuv?"

"Shut your face."

Sam laughed and just walked out to the car in the hospital parking lot. Fortunately, Dean had the presence of mind to ask if Phoebe Cooper had left her contact information. Unfortunately, his call went straight to voicemail. He left his information and then followed Sam outside. The moose had to be fed regularly or he was useless.

They'd already learned the hard way that the local diner was kind of crap, a lot crap actually. So they got Chinese takeout and went back to the motel. He texted Phoebe, just in case she might see the text before she checked her voicemail.

Sam rolled his eyes when he left another voicemail, but hunkered down over his computer and didn't say anything. Whatever Sam thought, Dean was _not_ in love with Phoebe. But … he could totally see how easily he _could_ be in love with her if he was just an average guy with a normal life. She was pretty and smart and, seriously, how brave of her was it to just walk up to them and volunteer to help solve the case just seconds after losing her memory? Most people would be pissing themselves in a moment like that. Phoebe just rolled with it. He liked that in a person.

Dean ate all the beef out of Sam's beef with broccoli, but the Jolly Green Giant either didn't notice or didn't care. Both of those possibilities seemed a little shameful to Dean, but whatever. When his phone rang, he shoved his carton of moo goo gai pan at Sam even though there was still plenty of chicken left in it that he hadn't yet picked out of the vegetables.

"Hello? Phoebe?"

"Hello, Dean."

"Where are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm quite well," she answered. "And you?"

"Well, _I_ still have _my_ memory," Dean said. 

"I still don't," she said, not sounding the least bothered by this fact. "But I do have some interesting notes from my interviews earlier. If you and your brother would like to meet me at my address, we can go over them. I need to stop at the grocery store first though."

Dean shook his head, amused at Phoebe's insistence on going through the motions of a normal life despite her inexplicable condition. "How do you know where you live?"

"Well, assuming the address on my driver's license is correct, I live there. If my keys open the front door, I will take that as confirmation. I will admit to some hesitancy about approaching the residence for the first time. What if I don't live alone? I may have to explain the situation to family or possibly even a significant other. That seems … oddly disconcerting."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, suddenly feeling weirdly jealous. It seemed more than likely that Phoebe was dating someone or probably even married. She was beautiful and smart and people like that didn't stay single long. "If you want, Sam and I can meet you first, so you aren't walking in alone."

Sam mimed gagging and Dean threw a pillow at him. At least he was quiet in his mockery.

"That's very thoughtful," Phoebe said. "Let me look up the closest grocery store to my address and we can meet there."

"Why a grocery store?"

"I have a shopping list. I apparently was planning to go shopping today. It seems reasonable that I should still do so."

"Okay, uh, sure."

They figured out which grocery store to meet at and then he had to rush Sam through his stir fry. Sam was obviously eating extra slow just to be a bitch. Then he made some crack about Dean just being distracted by Phoebe's cute butt.

"Yo, not cool! Her butt is not your concern. Don't be crude."

"Seriously?" Sam laughed, _finally_ heading out to the car. "You're actually falling for her, aren't you?"

Dean spent the brief car ride explaining to Sam what a complete idiot he was. Then they walked into the store and he spotted Phoebe with her shopping cart in the produce section and if Sam had asked him right then, and if he felt like being honest about it, then, yeah, he'd have to admit that he was a tiny bit in love with her. There was just something completely indescribable about her that made his stomach flip. She was already heading out of the produce section into the bakery display and Dean quickened his pace to catch up with her. Rushing turned out to be unnecessary as the bread display seemed to have her rather fixated.

"Hey!" he called.

Phoebe looked up and smiled at him and his stomach flipped over once more. She immediately went back to frowning at the bread though.

"Problem?"

"My list only says 'bread'," she explained. "It does not specify the type of bread."

Dean glanced at the bakery display. It was true that there were many different kinds, but he still didn't entirely understand what the problem was. "So, just get whatever you want."

"It would help if I knew the purpose of the bread," she said, poking experimentally at an unsliced sourdough loaf.

"For eating most likely," Sam said, proving he wasn't over his bitch mood. Dean punched him in the arm when Phoebe wasn't looking.

"I believe that's a safe assumption, yes," Phoebe said. "However, if the goal were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for instance, I would chose a different type of bread than if it's intended for making reubens or garlic bread."

She picked up a loaf of rye bread with one hand and a baguette with the other to demonstrate her point.

"It's a conundrum," Sam said and Dean punched him in the arm again. "What? I'm trying to be sympathetic."

"The shopping list included raspberry jam," she added, placing a loaf of sliced white bread in her cart, "but it's possible that was an ingredient for a recipe, perhaps even crepes, and not related to the bread at all."

"Fascinating," Sam said, stepping out of Dean's punching radius.

Sam's phone rang before Dean could say anything else.

"Hello?" After a brief hesitation, Sam added, "Yeah, man, of course we're friends."

Sam rolled his eyes and said, "We are the best of friends … Holy crap, where are you?! … Hang on, let me get a pen." Sam snapped his fingers at Dean, but it was Phoebe who handed over a pen and notebook. Sam scribbled something down and then said, "We'll be right there to pick him up. Thanks."

"What?"

"We have to go."

Phoebe looked so sad it nearly broke Dean's heart. "What? Why? We can't leave Phoebe."

"We have to go _now_. Cas has amnesia."

_Crap!_

Dean turned to Phoebe to tell her they'd meet her at her apartment after all, but she was already putting the bread back on the shelf and it was clear she planned to go with them.

Sam pulled his _Really, Dean?_ face, but didn't say anything.

"You can ride with us," Dean told her. "We'll come back for your car later."

"I call shotgun," Phoebe said as she headed out to the parking lot.

"What?" Sam said. "No. You can't do that. Dean, tell her she can't do that."

"Seriously, Cas has freaking amnesia and you're upset because someone else called shotgun fair and square? Grow up, man."


	5. Thirty minutes later, same grocery store …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Some chapters are dramatically shorter than others as I opted to post each Point of View in its own chapter.)

It was like herding cats, Sam decided, really horny cats.

Now Castiel _and_ Phoebe were debating the merits of white bread versus wheat bread and Dean … Dean looked like he was perfectly happy to be in the middle of whatever sandwich they had in mind. Sam had never once seen a porno start in the bakery section of a grocery store, but, damn, there was a lot of sexual tension going on over there.

Castiel was openly flirting with Dean which had Dean completely flustered. Cas was just drunk enough to be, well, odd, but not drunk enough to be making a scene in the grocery store. Phoebe wasn't being obvious about being bothered, but Sam couldn't help but notice the way she casually moved closer to Dean every time Cas got a little too close. And considering that Cas had the personal space of a drunken angel, that meant that the three of them were all standing _way_ too close to each other for people allegedly discussing baked goods.

"Why don't we get two different kinds of bread," Sam suggested. Once that was settled they relocated to the dairy section where the debate turned to whole milk versus skim milk versus 2% and whether there was a noticeable difference between 2% and 1%.

Sam volunteered to go find the beer since Phoebe's list was very specific about that.

He caught back up with them in aisle three where, having compromised on 2% milk, they were reading every single label on every single jar of jams, jellies, and preserves. They settled on raspberry jam, grape jelly, and strawberry preserves.

The only item left was eggs, but as Phoebe and Dean went looking for eggs, Cas announced that they would need more beer and dragged Sam back to the beer aisle.

Cas hung onto Sam's arm for balance. At least Sam hoped that's why Cas had wrapped himself around Sam's bicep. "Why didn't you tell me they were a _thing_ before I made such a fool out of myself," he whispered in Sam's ear.

"Huh?"

"Dean and Phoebe are obviously a thing and you let me just throw myself at him like that. You said we were best friends. Best friends do not let each other down like that, man. Not cool. Not cool at all."

"Sorry," Sam laughed. "Yeah, I don't know what's going on there, but Phoebe's new. She and Dean don't have nearly the history that you two have."

"So what you're saying is I still have a chance?" Cas asked.

That was a loaded question, wasn't it? "Well, I was about to say, 'You know how Dean is,' but I guess you don't."

"Amnesia," Cas said. "Kinda weird, yeah. What about you?"

"Me?"

"Single?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Do I have a shot?" Cas asked.

Sam froze. If he didn't know better, Cas was … Cas slung an arm around Sam's neck and pulled him down into a kiss—an actual kiss, a wet slobbery drunken kind of kiss—and Sam was so stunned he didn't pull free quite fast enough.

"Dude! No! We don't … we _don't_. Oh, my God, never tell Dean that happened. Ever."

Cas smiled up at him with sleepy eyes. "So are _you_ and Dean a thing?"

"No!"

A stock boy snickered and didn't even pretend he wasn't staring.

Sam lowered his voice and said, "Let's just get the beer and get out of here."

Cas shrugged and Sam was able to disentangle himself and pick up the case of beer, which he held in front of him like a shield until he got back to the shopping cart where Dean and Phoebe were locking lips next to the egg case.

"Seriously?! That's it. Cold showers for everybody." Sam dumped the case of beer on top of the first one with the thump and then pointed a finger at Dean. "This isn't just an amnesia case. You're all under some kind of love spell."

"What?" Dean scoffed. "I'm not under a love spell."

"You're under a love spell all right. You're _all_ under some kind of love spell."

"You're just jealous because Phoebe likes _me_ instead of you."

"Cas just tried to shove his tongue down my throat in the liquor aisle."

Cas was leaning on the shopping cart, but his head perked up at that. "Who's Cas?"

"So it's a combination love-amnesia spell," Dean said, clearly needing no further evidence.

"Except you don't have amnesia."

"But I'm also not under a love spell," Dean insisted. "I just naturally respond to beautiful women. I can't help it."

"Yeah, okay. Just, uh, take Cas out to the car. I think he's a little too drunk for the store to sell us beer. Phoebe and I will check out and then meet you in the parking lot."

"Wait, so I'm Cas?" Cas pulled Jimmy Novak's driver's license out and showed it to Phoebe. "This is me, isn't it?"

Phoebe examined the photo and stared intently at Castiel's face. "It would appear to be. Yes."

"I'll explain outside," Dean said. "Come on."


	6. In the parking lot …

This was just all kinds of messed up. First there was the super hot chick, who might not actually be all that into him after all, which was going to be really embarrassing when she got her memory back. _And_ he had to figure out how to explain to an amnesiac angel that his name wasn't James Novak and that he was absolutely not supposed to get his tongue anywhere near Sam.

"Okay, so …" Dean leaned on the Impala's trunk and gestured for Cas to do the same. "Let's just check in and see how much of your brain is still working. Who's the president?"

"Obama."

"What state are we in?"

"The state of confusion," Cas said with a dippy smile before adding, "and also Michigan."

"Accurate on both counts. Let's play real-or-not-real. Hippopotamus, real or not real?"

"Real and also gross. Did you know that they have a whole splatter-zone you have to stay clear of when they poo?"

"That's nasty," Dean agreed. "Giraffe?"

"Real or possibly I'm just drunker than I realized because the more you think about them the less likely they seem."

"Agreed. Unicorn?"

"More likely yet not real."

"Good. Werewolf?"

"Not real."

Dean groaned inwardly. He didn't really need to ask the last one, but might as well say it. "Angel?"

"Not real. Although I'll deny I said that if you repeat it in front of a Sunday school teacher."

"Fuck."

"Sorry, were we actually planning theological debates with Sunday school teachers?"

"Cas, I need you to listen to me carefully and I need you to believe that I'm telling you the truth."

"How did I get the nickname Cass? Like, the only Cass I can think of off the top of my head is Cass Elliot and I don't get it."

"It's short for Castiel, which is your name, your real name. You're _not_ Jimmy Novak. Jimmy Novak was ... " Dean hesitated on the wording and decided that Cas wasn't ready for all the details yet. "…this guy who died a few years ago and you're sort of built out of his molecules or something, but you're not actually him."

Cas was listening with a blank expression.

"Cas, you're an _angel_."

"I'm _dead_ and now I'm an _angel_?"

"No. You're not dead. Dead people don't become angels; they become spirits. You've _always_ been an angel. But angels don't have physical bodies or at least not ones they can manifest in the earthly plane without blasting humans out of existence or whatever. You're like giant nuclear reactors with wings. You once told me that your true form was the size of the Chrysler Building. So to be here you needed a human body which is why you look like Jimmy."

"Cool."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"Not even a little bit. Run it by me again later after I've had a few more beers."

"Here, let me prove it." Dean pulled out a small jackknife. It wasn't even a weapon, just a tool for cutting twine or carving an apple. But Castiel scrambled off the Impala's trunk and jumped back a good six feet. "Dude, it's okay. Look." He cut a small nick in the side of his pinky, only enough to draw a little blood.

Cas took another big step back. "The hell, man?!"

"You can heal this," Dean said trying to keep his voice as measured as possible. "Come here."

"Shit. I am not drunk enough for this. Seriously, I'm halfway sober and it sucks. I'm not even buzzed anymore, I'm just kind of queasy and my head is starting to hurt. I _cannot_ deal with you going psycho on me!"

"Cas, it's okay. I swear. You can heal this. And if you can't, it's still okay. It's just a little cut, right?" He motioned Cas forward. "You're really an angel, Cas. I swear."

Cas stayed exactly where he was. "I'm not touching your bloody finger. I don't know where you've been."

"You don't even have to touch my hand. Most of the time you just touch my forehead."

Cas stayed back, but said, "I do this, it doesn't work, no more crazy talk? You don't cut anything else? Agreed?"

"Absolutely."

Cas approached hesitantly and got no closer than the required arm's reach. He placed his hand on Dean's forehead and then asked, "Now what?"

"Uh … I'm not sure," Dean admitted. "Think healing thoughts?"

Dean was about to admit that this was a stupid idea since he had no idea _how_ Cas worked his mojo and couldn't exactly give step-by-step instructions. Then he was hit with a diffuse sense of peace, like that first caffeine hit in the morning, and he held up his healed finger for Castiel's inspection.

"Holy fuck, I have super powers," Cas whispered.

"You're kind of awesome actually," Dean said.

Cas put both of his hands on top of his own head and announced, "No headache. And I'm sober. Wait. That's the opposite of helpful. I'm not ready for sober. Shit. What else can I do?"

"Well, the healing thing is kind of the big one. Saved my ass a few times." This probably wasn't the time to bring up Cas pulling his soul of out hell and resurrecting his body. "You're pretty good at the smiting, too. Exorcising demons and the like."

"Demons?"

"Uh, yeah, demons are real too. Sorry."

"No, no thank you," Cas said in roughly the same tone of voice he might use if he were turning down a second cup of coffee. "I'm not psychologically prepared to live in a universe with demons it it."

Dean decided that was fair. "And you can hear prayers and you sort of foomphf in and out whenever you want. That's sort of cool, I suppose. Little disconcerting sometimes, but … cool?"

"I can foomphf?" Cas repeated. "How does one _foomphf_?"

"I dunno. You want to go somewhere and you kind of just … " It was at that exact moment that Dean realized he'd made a tactical error, but it was too late to suck the words back in. 

Cas got a funny smile on his face and, before Dean could tell him no, he was gone. It was rare that Dean was looking directly at him when he took off like that and it was weird how for just a second he thought he could actually see the air rushing in to fill the Cas-shaped vacuum he left behind.


	7. In the checkout line …

Sam was nearly positive that Dean was under a love spell. _Cas_ might just be drunk; the angel's reaction to alcohol was never predictable. Sam obviously didn't know Phoebe well enough to know if falling for a guy in a single day was in or out of character for her. But Dean, Dean was _hovering_. If he'd just been drooling over her, fine. She was pretty and Dean was shallow and that was pretty much typical Dean. But he was all _gooby_ over her. He was also protective in that weird mama-bear way that Dean had which Sam didn't often see directed at anyone other than himself. _That_ , Sam realized, was the weird part that was bugging him.

Weirdest of all, Sam felt the tug too. As they stood in line, Phoebe was reading the labels on the candy wrappers, having already glanced over the tabloid headlines and dismissed them as boring. Sam had to fight the urge to reach out and pat her on the head in approval. How could he be so ready to confer honorary little sister status on a woman they had only just met? They really didn't know the first thing about her.

Sam looked over the tabloid headlines himself. It was all celebrity gossip or miracle weight loss stories. He missed the old-school tabloids with stories like "I Had Bigfoot's Baby!" and "Flying Monkey Lands On Wing Of DC-10 Mid-Flight!" The stories pretty much never panned out as real cases, but they were a fun read and just occasionally they got lucky. When Sam was about twelve, before he'd learned to be properly cynical about the world and realized that all the stories were just made up, he'd wanted to be a field reporter for the _Weekly World News_. He thought he could write much more interesting accounts of the paranormal than they were printing and they'd obviously pay all of his expenses so they wouldn't have to eat cold SpaghettiOs out of the can anymore.

"Would Dean like the plain ones or the ones with peanuts?" Phoebe asked, holding up two packets of candy.

"Dean has had more than enough sugar for one day," Sam said. "In fact, I'm pretty sure we still have half a bag of taffy in the car."

Phoebe nodded and put the candy back on the shelf. She insisted on paying for all of the things on her shopping list and Sam insisted on paying for all the add-ons including the second case of beer.

Phoebe waited until they were out of earshot of the cashier before saying, "You think the amnesia cases are caused by magic."

"I know it sounds weird, but yeah."

"And you think we're under a love spell as well?"

"It's a real possibility, yeah."

"Because it's unlikely that Dean would actually be in love with me?" she asked.

 _Man, it's like kicking a puppy,_ Sam thought. "I'm not saying it's not possible …"

"But it's unlikely?" she repeated.

Sam shrugged. "Dean can fall hard, but he rarely falls this fast. And we already suspected some kind of magical influence going on here, so …"

Phoebe nodded quietly, but said nothing more. He'd expected her to protest. To insist that she and Dean were truly in love. Or to deny the possibility of magic at all. But she just pushed the shopping cart out into the parking lot.

She went to her own car and started loading the groceries into the back, while Sam waved Dean over. "Dude, where's Cas?"

Dean had that lopsided smile he got when there was bad news he was about to gloss over.

"Dean?" Sam repeated warily. "Where's Cas?"

Dean cleared his throat and the smile went even more sideways. "He, uh, he foomphfed."

Sam had picked up the first case of beer, but froze and let Phoebe take it from him, while he glared at Dean. "You let him leave? In his condition?"

"I didn't _let_ him do anything. He just foomphfed. He does that. Also, he's not drunk anymore. He healed himself. I, um, told him he had healing powers and he figured out how to cure drunk, only then I think he decided that he needed to get re-drunk again so he split."

"If you need to go look for your friend, I understand." Phoebe seemed a little deflated after their _you're-probably-under-a-love-spell_ talk, but she remained polite and attentive.

"There's no finding Cas unless he wants to be found," Dean said.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "He could literally be anywhere."

"So, we'll meet you back at Phoebe's," Dean said to Sam and climbed into the passenger seat of her Kermit-green hybrid.

"Dean," Sam said.

"What?"

"Fine," Sam said with an audible sigh. "What's the address?"


	8. Inside the Kermit head …

The passenger seat felt wrong. The seatbelt went the wrong way. He was sitting too close to the shoulder of the road. Never mind the lack of legroom or that the car's electric motor was so quiet it didn't even sound like the car was turned on. Phoebe also had a very relaxed view of driving that made Dean feel like they might get there faster if he got out and pushed. He clenched his teeth for as long as he could, but then Phoebe hit the brakes for a yellow light.

He lurched forward in his seat and without thinking blurted out, "What the hell was that?!"

"What?"

"Why did you slam on the brakes?!"

"The light is yellow. You have to stop when the light is yellow."

"No you don't! You stop for _red_. All yellow means is that the light is _going_ to turn red. You only stop for yellow when you know you can't make it before the red!"

"According to the law, every driver has to stop at a yellow light unless said driver is too close to the intersection to stop safely. I was able to stop safely, therefore I was legally required to stop."

"What? You don't even know your own name, but you've got crap like that memorized?"

"I know my name. My name is Phoebe Cooper."

"Say it again, Fibby."

"I didn't ask anyone to cast an amnesia spell or a love spell on me and I think I'm coping quite well with both under the circumstances."

"Oh, my God, are we having our first fight?" Dean asked. "We are. We're having our first fight. This is awesome."

Phoebe frowned at him, clearly not understanding the implications.

"We're having a stupid fight about yellow lights," Dean said. "It means we're not under a love spell."

"Don't people who are in love still have fights about trivial things?"

"Yeah, that's the point. People who are really in love argue about stupid stuff sometimes, but not people who are under love spells."

"So, because you don't like my driving, that means we're really in love?" Phoebe asked, staring intently in his eyes.

"Yeah." And Dean _knew_ he had a stupid grin on his face, but he couldn't help it.

"Oh."

"Oh." _Oh!_ Dean's brain stuttered to a halt. They were _in love_ , like actual _love_. This wasn't just flirting with a pretty girl or hoping to get lucky after the case was solved. This was deep down, butterflies-in-the-stomach _love_ and … shit, nothing about that would end well for Phoebe. _Fuck._

The blare of a car horn let them know the light was now green. They drove on in silence.

A few blocks away from the address listed on her license, Phoebe turned into a gas station and pulled up to the first pump.

"You need gas now? We're almost there."

"I found a to-do list that said I was supposed to fill the gas tank. I must also vacuum and do dishes if I haven't done so already."

"You want me to …" Dean started to unbuckle his seatbelt, but Phoebe shook her head.

"I can pump the gas, but you're more than welcome to assist with the other chores when we get home. She fished her credit card out of her bag to pay for gas and in the process pulled out a notebook. She flipped through it until she found a specific page, crossed something off of it, and then handed it to Dean.

  * ~~pay electric bill~~
  * ~~pick up dry cleaning~~
  * ~~groceries~~
  * vacuum 
  * dishes 
  * fill gas tank 
  * hide dildo
  * hide weed
  * gift for Olivia??? 
  * REMEMBER TUESDAY 10:42 !!!!!!



Dean got more than halfway down the list before he choked.


	9. At Phoebe's apartment …

Sam pulled the Impala up to the curb across the street from the address Phoebe had given him. The apartment building had its own parking lot, but it was plastered with "Residents Only! Violators Will Be Towed!" signs.

There was no sign of Phoebe or Dean yet, which left Sam uneasy. Cas wasn't in his right mind and he was off who knows where. Now he'd let Dean and Phoebe slip away from him too. They were _probably_ fine. Sam may have just driven a little fast. He knew he lost them at a yellow light early on, but he didn't expect them to be more than a minute behind. He tried to come up with logical reasons why they were taking so long, but most of those reasons ended up with Dean and Phoebe making out somewhere. 

It wasn't like Sam was a prude or anything. Casual sex, at least as far as Dean was concerned, was an inevitable result of their lifestyle which included exactly zero white picket fences and happily ever afters. However, Phoebe was most definitely not in her right mind and he wasn't confident in Dean's mental state either.

The more he thought about it, the creepier it seemed. Dean would yell at him if he called just because they were two minutes late, but he had to do something before he went nuts, so he called Cas instead. He was actually surprised when he answered.

"Sam!"

"Hey, Cas, how are you doing?"

"I have super powers!"

"Yeah."

"You knew about this?"

"Yeah. I was planning to sort of ease you into it. I guess Dean just sprung it all on you, huh? Sorry. I imagine it's a little overwhelming."

"It's fucking amazing."

"Where are you?"

"Paris!"

"France?"

"Did you know the dance clubs here stay open until like five o'clock in the morning?"

"Sounds … cool, but if it's okay, would you mind coming back and hanging out with us here, just until you get your memory back."

"It's only two a.m. here. I've still got three hours. I'll see you then."

"Cas, please, don't do anything you'll regret later."

"It's just _dancing_."

"As long as it's _just_ dancing."

"Love and kisses to Dean and Phoebe for me! Adieu!"

Cas hung up and Sam was just about to call Dean, when the little green car pulled into the parking lot. "We had to get gas," Dean said as he unfolded himself from the little car.

"I thought that was electric," Sam said skeptically.

"Hybrid," Phoebe said. "It still uses gasoline, just less of it."

"And filling up the tank was on Phoebe's to-do list," Dean explained.

"Ah." Sam had already witnessed Phoebe's dedication to her lists. Not that he could blame her. If he had no personal memories and his only connection with his old self was a notebook of lists, he'd probably pay extra attention to them as well.

They carried the groceries up to her door and knocked first just to make sure. When no one answered, Phoebe tried all of her keys until she found the one to let them in.

"Hello?" she called as she stepped in the door. "Olivia?"

"Who's Olivia?" Sam asked.

"Dunno," Dean said, "but buying a present for her is on the to-do list."

Sam poked around down the hallway and found a linen closet, a bathroom, and a single bedroom. He walked back into the living room which was separated by only a small counter from the kitchen where Phoebe and Dean were putting the groceries away.

"It's a one bedroom and I only see one toothbrush in the bathroom, so I think you live alone."

"That's good news," Dean said. "At least we don't have to deal with a roommate."

"Or a husband," Sam added. Dean shot him a nasty scowl, but Sam thought it was important to remind them they had no idea if Phoebe was even available.

Sam started looking through the knick knack shelves just in case there was a clue of some kind, but Dean immediately pounced on him.

"Hey, what are you doing? Stop snooping around."

"What if there's a hex bag here?"

"There's no hex bag here. If there were a hex bag anywhere it would be at the coffee shop where she got amnesia. That coffee shop was the last place we saw Cas before he went all loopy too. Hey." Dean turned to Phoebe, "Didn't you have stuff you wanted to clean up and _put away_."

Phoebe nodded and began filling the sink with hot water. "It's really very inefficient leaving dirty dishes lying around," she said, apparently lecturing herself as she gathered up a number of dirty dishes from various places on the kitchen counter. "This would have gone much faster if I'd just washed them immediately."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, "but there was stuff you wanted to _put away_."

"I have to wash them before I can put them away," she said.

"All right. Fine. Fine. You," Dean said, pointing at Sam, "don't touch anything!" Dean promptly disappeared into the bedroom.

Sam listened to the distant sound of drawers opening and closing. "Is there something you want help with?"

"No! Just stay out there. Ah." There were more muffled sounds and then Dean returned and walked up to Phoebe. "I put your thing in a shoebox in the closet."

"Hmm? Does this seem like an excessive quantity of spoons to you? I have at least five times as many spoons as bowls. I don't see a reason for that."

"Your _thing_ from your list. I found it and put it in a shoebox and it's up on your shelf in the closet."

Phoebe seemed to suddenly get what Dean was babbling about even though Sam still had no clue. "Oh! Thank you. That's very thoughtful. Some of these could go with mugs, I suppose. I know I'm definitely a coffee drinker. But there are still many extra spoons."

"I'm still looking for the other stuff."

"Thank you," Phoebe repeated.

"Is there something I can help with?" Sam asked.

"Can you find the vacuum cleaner?" Phoebe asked. "My list said I should vacuum."

"I think there was a hall closet. Let me go look."

So Phoebe did dishes and Sam vacuumed the living room and Dean poked around the apartment refusing to tell Sam what he was looking for.

Phoebe was putting the dishes in the drainer and Sam was wrapping the cord back up around the vacuum when Dean came back into the living room and announced, "Found it. Your stuff is in the box with the thing."

"The stuff is in the box with the thing?" Sam asked.

"This is a private conversation," Dean said. "You don't need to worry about it."

"Okay, who wants to go over my interview notes?" Phoebe was standing there clutching her notebook and looking _very_ proud of herself and even Sam had to admit that she was a tiny bit adorable.

"Sounds good," Dean said.

They sat down on the living room couch and Phoebe scratched off a few things in her notebook. "The only things left on my to-do list are 'gift for Olivia' and 'remember Tuesday 10:42'. I'm not quite sure what to do about either of those."

Sam glanced over and thus ended up with a pretty good idea of what Dean had been hiding in the closet. Dean's ears were pink, which basically confirmed it. He'd razz the hell out of Dean later, but for Phoebe's sake he behaved himself.

"So," Sam said, "we've mainly hit dead ends. What have you got?"


	10. Comparing notes …

Phoebe flipped the page on her notebook. She'd just have to figure out "Olivia" and "Tuesday" later.

"The hospital staff all described the victims as having slightly inconsistent symptoms, which I thought was interesting. Some were highly agitated to the point of tears. Others seemed merely frustrated or annoyed. This of course could be attributed to innate personality differences, but there have also been shifts in cognition. The first victim displayed a diminished intellect, loss of vocabulary, and severe emotional instability. These symptoms are not at all unexpected in someone who has experienced the kind of brain trauma most often associated with sudden memory loss, so they weren't considered unusual. The hospital staff was instead surprised by later patients who were functioning at or _above_ typical cognitive levels."

"Count yourself among those," Dean said with a smile.

She smiled back at him and her stomach gave a little flutter. Dean was impossibly beautiful, every freckle, every line in his face a work of art. The way he looked at her simultaneously filled her with optimism and dread. Despite his own insistence that grumbling about her driving proved he wasn't under a spell, people just didn't look at each other like that, at least not while sober. She somehow knew it was all going to come crashing down at any moment. She tried to focus back on her notes.

"In particular, one of the nursing staff recalled a patient who began lecturing them on the life of Thomas Jefferson."

"A fan of the Founding Fathers," Dean said, seeming to follow her account with interest.

"Actually one of the phrases the nurse recalled was 'Thomas Jefferson was a total douchewad'. He apparently went on at length about Jefferson's failings. He seemed particularly distressed by the age difference between Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. Did you know that Jefferson was three decades older than Hemmings and by many accounts she was between fourteen and sixteen years old when their relationship became sexual?"

"Douchewad," Dean agreed.

"The nurse could not recall specifics, but she said, at the time, she looked up Jefferson on the Internet and verified the dates and names that the patient mentioned. The man's wife told the staff that her husband had shown no particular interest in American history and she couldn't imagine how he knew these things."

"We might want to follow up with him and see if he's got any local history knowledge," Sam suggested.

Phoebe shook her head. "The nurse relayed the story anecdotally, but wouldn't release specific patient names to me. However, if we cross reference our information we might be able to figure out who is whom through process of elimination since we can at least narrow it down to a married male."

"Good plan. Let me get my laptop from the car."

"I'll help," Dean said, which caused his brother to frown at him.

"It's just a laptop," Sam said.

"Yeah, but we might as well bring all our bags in at once."

"Dean, we have a hotel room."

"You're more than welcome to stay here," Phoebe offered, suddenly realizing what the brothers were arguing about. "I obviously don't have a guest room, but that futon looks like it folds out."

"See," Dean said. "It's all good."

"I don't like futons," Sam said. "They wobble."

"Futons were originally designed for use directly on the floor," Phoebe said. "The frames are a Western addition for people who prefer furniture a certain height above floor level. For sleeping, we can just move the coffee table and put the futon itself on the floor."

"There you go. No wobble. It's settled." Dean walked out and Sam shrugged at Phoebe before following him out.

She found herself just staring at the walls waiting for them to return. _I live here_ , she tried to tell herself. It still felt like sitting in a stranger's home. Her driver's license said she was thirty-two. Based on her job and her apartment, she would have guessed a decade younger. The walls were lined with concert posters for various musical acts. Intellectually, she recognized them all and could tell you all about each band. But she had no personal memory of them. Had she been to all of these concerts or did she just collect the posters for the aesthetic? How did she afford this small, but comfortable, apartment on what was most likely a minimum-wage job without a roommate? Was Olivia a relative? Her mother? Her girlfriend? Was Olivia visiting on Tuesday? Moving in? Or was _she_ supposed to be going somewhere on Tuesday?

When Sam and Dean returned, her heart somersaulted, first a dizzying high and then a crashing thud. She was under a love spell. This couldn't be real. Sam and Dean would solve the case and move on and maybe by then she would be cured and so it wouldn't hurt to see them go, but she couldn't imagine it. The apartment wasn't her home. Dean was her home.

She again grounded herself with the notebook in front of her. "We have twelve known victims," she said. "Fourteen adding in Castiel and myself. The first patient showed a decrease in vocabulary as did the ninth and eleventh patients, but none of the other amnesia victims presented with these symptoms to any noticeable degree at all."

Sam skimmed through a spreadsheet on his computer. "I hadn't run across the vocabulary issue, but I'd definitely picked up that some of the people are loopier than others. Okay, so I've got two married men on the list. It's either Bob Thompson or Kenneth Richardson."

"Thompson then. I interviewed Richardson myself."

"I thought you said the hospital wouldn't release any names," Dean said.

"I convinced them to pass along my contact information instead. Two of the patients called me. Kenneth Richardson was one and Max Levitt was the other."

"Smart," Sam said.

"I was particularly intrigued by the vocabulary issue as one woman lost an entire language, her native Tagalog, and another man showed dramatic loss of Spanish fluency. I was thinking this could be something related to the language centers in the brain, but the vast majority of people haven't shown any change in language ability. I certainly haven't noticed trouble finding words myself."

"Maybe it's something about being bilingual?" Dean suggested. "Like, you can only remember one language?"

"Do you know any languages other than English?" Sam asked.

Phoebe shrugged. It was hard to explain what she did or didn't know. Things popped into her head when she searched for the knowledge or they didn't. "Me llamo Phoebe Cooper y hablo español. Así que parece ser bilingüe."

"Okay, so scratch that idea," Sam said.

Phoebe flipped the page on her notes. "Kenneth Richardson said something really fascinating when I interviewed him. He was speaking rather quickly so I didn't get it all down, but this was rather striking."

On the page she had scribbled: _3 thns fathr told me: 1 life short, smile while teeth. 2 nvr vote fr man u wldnt buy car. 3 bst invstmnt next gen._

"In the course of casual conversation, Mr. Richardson quoted his father. He said something to the effect of 'My father told me three things. Life is short so smile while you still have your teeth. Never vote for a man you wouldn't buy a car from. And the best investments are in the next generation.' However, when I specifically asked about his father, he couldn't remember anything about him and decided that he may have just attributed the advice as 'something a father would say'."

Sam nodded. "We've been hitting that wall too. It's like the more specific the question, the more difficulty in answering it. But then odd things slip out when they aren't trying. You implied that you had brothers when we first met, but when we asked about it you didn't know why you said it."

Phoebe turned the page on her notebook. "My interview with Max Levitt was also interesting, though I'm not sure I gathered anything productive from it. What struck me is how _happy_ both Kenneth Richardson and Max Levitt were despite their memory blocks. Now Kenneth Richardson is quite wealthy and has much to be justifiably happy about. I can imagine that in his case amnesia has cleared his mind of any pre-existing concerns and given a fresh perspective on his material surroundings. However Max Levitt lives in a studio apartment over his landlord's garage. He's as least temporarily out of a job as he's lost his skills as a dog groomer. It would be quite understandable if he were depressed or anxious about his situation."

"Yeah, the dog groomer, I remember him," Dean said. "He was very chill."

"He remembered both of you as well," Phoebe said. "He referred to the two of you as 'Dreamboat' and 'Hotsy Totsy'. I was never clear which was which."

Sam snickered and Dean blushed, but then added, "Wait, wait. The dog groomer had a girlfriend. We interviewed her."

"They broke up," Phoebe said. "He said she was a fuddy duddy."

"But he had a _girl_ friend."

"Oh, my God, Dean," Sam said and Phoebe could _hear_ the impatience without looking up from her notes to see the eye roll she imagined Sam making. "How can you, of all people, think that there are only two options?"

"What?"

"Anyway, my point is that Max seems unusually happy. He insisted on taking me for a walk and showing me the park near his apartment and he kept going on about the beautiful weather and what a lovely day it was to be outside."

Sam nodded. "Contrast that with the manicurist who was in a constant state of agitation because she was sure she'd forgotten an important appointment."

"Which," Dean added, "to be fair, she probably had."

"Or the college student who was ranting at us that we had to fix this immediately because her taxes pay our salaries," Sam said.

"Yeah, about that," Phoebe said, deciding that now was as good a time to bring it up as any. "So between all the talk about hex bags and love spells and 'foomphfing', is it safe for me to assume that you're not actually with the CDC and we're ruling out mundane diseases?"

Dean took Phoebe's nearer hand in both of his, sending a shiver up her arm. "We're Hunters. We hunt monsters, witches, demons. You name it. Things that prey on innocent people. This thing smells witchy, so we came by to check it out."

"Your friend. You said he had healing powers. Is he some kind of good witch?"

"No, no. Cas, uh, Castiel is," Dean trailed off and licked his lips which was rather distracting. "Castiel is an angel."

"An angel?"

"Yeeeaaaah. You okay? I know this has been a lot for one day."

"I'm good. I should probably be shocked or something, but monsters, demons, angels … it explains a lot. But … shouldn't angels be powerful?"

"Oh, yeah, Cas is actually kind of scary when he's in full Angel of the Lord mode."

"But how can a witch cast a spell on an angel?"

"That," Sam said, "is probably the key point we should be focusing on. This smells witchy, but we have never encountered a witch powerful enough to pull off something like this. "

"What's stronger than an angel?" Phoebe asked.

"Well, let's see, there's the Anti-Christ."

"Anti-Christ?"

"Surprisingly nice kid," Dean added.

"Demigods, archangels, _Dean_ when he still had the Mark of Cain … I mean it narrows it down at least, but, yeah, there are still some pretty powerful things out there."

"But _why_?" Phoebe asked. "Why would anyone—be it demigod or super-monster—be giving random people amnesia? What's the point?"

No one had an answer to that.


	11. Off the coast of Kona, Hawaii …

"So it turned out that Paris was actually kind of boring," he said. "I always thought it would be romantic and exciting, but it's really just another loud smelly city filled with loud smelly people. So then I thought, where _do_ I want to go? Like, what do I really want to be doing? And, of course, I thought Mai Tais and ocean breezes and so I'm here. What about you?"

"I just had to get somewhere warm," Marybeth replied. "My joints can't take that Minnesota weather. And what's the point of retirement if you can't enjoy it, I say."

Cass liked Marybeth. She was traveling with a small group of elderly women, but whereas most of the others only wanted to prattle on about their grandbabies, Marybeth was happy to pull up a deck chair and enjoy the view. And, like Cass, Marybeth agreed that the splendid view _included_ the Polynesian dancers, both male and female, at the center of their dinner cruise.

"Oh, if I were fifty years younger," Marybeth said wistfully as one of the young men flexed. "What about you? What's holding _you_ back?"

"I have this nagging feeling that I'm not available," Cass answered, waving a waitress over for another Mai Tai. "Like, I'm not actually _taken_ , but there have been a lot of mixed signals lately and I'm feeling like I _should_ be spoken for."

"Oh," Marybeth said with a knowing nod, "you're holding out for a waffler. Not worth it. Piss or get off the pot. If a person won't commit to you, don't put your life on hold hoping she's suddenly _gonna_."

"At what point is it too late to start over though?" Cass wondered. "I'm not getting any younger, biological clock is ticking. I walk away from a relationship in the hopes of _maybe_ finding someone else … what are the odds of that working out before it's too late."

"Horsefeathers! First of all, you are a man in a man's world, which means your biological clock is ticking along indefinitely. Secondly, even if you were a woman, it's not like you're staring menopause in the face. You're still young, you've got plenty of time left. And thirdly …" Marybeth twisted her head around both ways to make sure no one was listening and then lowered her voice. "Thirdly, children are overrated. They are a lot louder and smellier than Paris tourists. They will suck all the money out of your life while you raise them and then they'll still expect you to bail them out of every little jam when they grow up. That's the other answer to why I'm in Hawaii. Hawaii is where my family is _not_."

Cass enjoyed the rest of the show before checking his phone messages and noticing he had a text from Dean with an address in Michigan. "We're here when you're ready to call it a night." It was still broad daylight in Hawaii so it took him a moment to realize that folks were likely settling down for the night in Michigan. He hugged Marybeth goodbye and healed her arthritis without telling her and then slipped off to the little girl's room for a quick pee and a quiet place to foomphf out without anyone noticing.


	12. Back in Phoebe's apartment …

"Hello, beautiful people!" Cas announced as he popped in and staggered toward them, waving a tropical drink in one hand. "Didja miss me?"

Sam groaned and reached out to steady him. He did not understand why the universe decided to make _him_ the responsible adult while everyone else ran amuck.

"How was Paris?" he asked as he steered Cas to the sofa.

"Boring. I went to Hawaii instead. I saw dancers and a whale and I cured a lady's joints. I was amazing."

"You're always amazing, Cas," Dean reassured him.

"Well, I suppose, I should turn in," Phoebe announced. "It's been an eventful day."

It looked like even Dean could tell that things were a little tense between Phoebe and Cas. "Did we even introduce you two properly? Yo, man, sober up," Dean added hitting Castiel's shoulder with the back of two fingers.

Cas sighed dramatically, but immediately regained his balance.

"Good. Uh, Phoebe, this is Castiel, Angel of the Lord. He's a little loopy right now what with the amnesia and all, but he's actually a really great guy. Cas, this is Phoebe Cooper. She's been helping us work this case since this morning and she's been doing a really amazing job and she's, uh, _special_. Okay?"

Cas looked to Sam for apparent guidance. Sam shrugged and nodded, but before Cas could say anything, Phoebe volunteered, "There might be a love spell involved. We're not sure."

Dean hesitantly slipped one arm around Phoebe's shoulders, almost daring Sam or Cas to say something.

"So anyway," Sam said, choosing to set that problem aside for another day, "as long as you're here and sober again, maybe you could help me read through some research and collate all our notes."

"You know, I've had a long day too," Cas said.

"Yeah, but angels don't sleep," Dean said.

"They don't?"

"Nope."

"Then why did I leave Hawaii?"

"Because we have a job to do here."

"No, no, no. If research were my thing, I'd have a college diploma. I'm going to go see the volcano with Marybeth. Text me if you've got anything _interesting_. Aloha!"

Phoebe squinted her eyes at the vacant space where Cas had just been standing. "That's a very annoying habit," she said.

"Oh, yeah," Dean agreed.

"I feel like I should stay up and help you research, but … I'm very tired."

"Hey, no, I understand," Sam said. "I only asked Cas on account of the not-sleeping thing. I think we'd be better off if we saved the reading for tomorrow morning when we all have clear eyes."

"Sleep well," Dean said and Sam immediately recognized the hopeful tilt to Dean's head. He was clearly trying to not be too obvious about it, but he had definitely slouched into a position where Phoebe wouldn't have to stretch too much if she wanted to kiss him. Sure enough, much to Dean's obvious delight, and Sam's nausea, Phoebe went up for the kiss.

Sam and Dean were going to have _a talk_ about this _very soon_ , but in the meantime, Sam just stared at the floor until Phoebe's footsteps signaled that it was safe to look up.

Sam walked over to the futon and pulled it off of the wooden frame and onto the floor. There was the sofa they'd been sitting on earlier, but Sam had already dismissed it as being too short for either of them to comfortably sleep on. They'd just have to share the futon on the floor, which was just as well. Dean was sometimes more receptive to discussing uncomfortable topics when he wasn't entirely awake.

Dean got extra blankets out of the hall closet and Sam took pillows from the sofa and soon enough they were bedded down for the night.

Sam waited until the lights were out and Dean was settled in before he asked, "So … Phoebe … are you thinking about something long term there?"

"Aw, man," Dean said, "you know it would never work. Our life has never been a good fit for other people."

"Dude, now you're depressing _me_. You think we're doomed to live like monks for the rest of our lives?"

"I didn't say anything about monks. _You_ need to get out and scratch that itch a little more often. There's more than a few clubs within an hour's drive of the bunker. Don't pretend you don't have options. I'm just saying that I have no illusions that this is going the distance. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the experience in the short term. Live in the moment, right?"

"Dean, she has amnesia. And she might _seem_ like she's functioning okay, but we don't know how else this might have affected her."

"I get that, man. I'm not taking advantage of her okay. We kissed like twice. Very innocent, junior high type kisses."

"I'm just pointing out that you don't know anything about her because she doesn't know anything about herself."

"She's perfect though."

"Dean."

"I'm not under a spell."

"Whatever."

"And even if it is a spell, what does that change, right? Either way, I look in her beautiful blue eyes and I can't quite think straight, y'know."

"Dean."

"Just, sleep, man. I don't want to talk about this tonight."

Sam listened as Dean punched his pillow and adjusted position. He almost let it slide. It was kind of trivial, but … it was a little weird. 

"Dean," he said, "Phoebe's eyes are brown."

"No. They're blue."

"Brown. Very brown."

"Totally blue. Like sapphire blue."

"Brown."

"Blue."

"Good night, Dean."

When Dean described Phoebe to people, he described her _clothing_ almost as if he didn't remember what _she_ looked like. Okay, maybe Sam was stretching there; her fashion sense was a little … bright … so that probably would be the easiest way to describe her to someone. But when Dean had described her height, he got it wrong. And when he described her eyes, he got it wrong. Considering how much time he'd spent staring at her, you'd think he could describe every pore on her face. It was as if—and possibly not _just_ as if—Dean were projecting someone else onto Phoebe. Sam found himself wondering what they'd get if Dean described her to a police sketch artist. A familiar angel, maybe?

Despite a lifetime's worth of protests to the contrary, Dean Winchester was a cuddler and Sam was still mulling over the possibilities when Dean rolled over and decided to use him as a pillow.

Sam knew it wouldn't really count, but he couldn't resist getting the last word for a change. He leaned his head down and whispered in Dean's ear, "Brown."

Dean snuffled and cuddled closer and then faintly mumbled "Bwue."


	13. The next morning …

Dean awoke to find Sam-the-Octopus wrapped around him. It wasn't even worth the effort of trying to peel himself free so he just lie there on the futon and stared at the ceiling for a bit and possibly drifted back to sleep to the sound of Sam's rhythmic snuffling in his ear. They had to figure out a way to get Cas back to normal or, well, normal-ish. It wasn't like Cas was ever quite normal. 

They couldn't afford to be a man down. Cas had saved their butts just enough times that Dean couldn't imagine things without him. Granted, bailing on them for short periods of time like this was also kind of status quo. It wasn't like he and Sam couldn't handle things on their own, but … he'd still rather have the guy around than not. And who knows what kind of trouble he could be getting into right this minute.

Cas needed to get his shit together and he needed to _stay_ with them at the bunker, like full time, and stop flitting off to God knows where every twelve minutes. The three of them against the world, the way it was supposed to be.

If the Steins hadn't found the bunker, he might entertain the idea of asking Phoebe back there. He'd imagined it as their secret sanctuary that no one could find, but … well, there was the Wicked Witch of Oz and Gadreel killed Kevin and then the final straw was the Steins trashing their library, not to mention the danger he himself had posed to Sam and, after all of that, he couldn't pretend that the bunker was a safe place for anyone. Maybe when Castiel got his marbles back they could work on camouflaging wards or something to lock the place down a little tighter.

Dean was jolted out of his sleepy musings by a sharp clattering sound. Sam sat up alongside him and they both scanned the room for threats.

"Sorry!" Phoebe said sheepishly. "I didn't mean to wake you. I was going to make breakfast, but cooking is problematic."

It was then that Dean realized he could smell burnt … something. Preventing Phoebe from burning the apartment down seemed more important than modesty so he quickly leapt up and dashed into the kitchen still clad only in a T-shirt and boxers.

Phoebe was staring at a steaming skillet that was now upside down on the floor. "I was going to make eggs, but the pan was heavy and much hotter than I expected and I'm still tired and a little dizzy and now there aren't eggs and I'm still hungry _and_ my hand hurts." She pouted and held out her hand which had a red welt forming across the palm.

"Cold water!" Dean said. He carefully stepped around the skillet and dragged Phoebe to the sink where he ran cold water over her hand. "Are you okay? Are you still dizzy? Any other symptoms?"

"I think it's just hunger," she said, absently leaning her head on Dean's shoulder. "I didn't eat dinner last night. I should have just made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That was my first instinct, but I know eggs are traditional breakfast fare and I thought you might prefer them."

Sam had found a pot holder and was cleaning up the mess on the floor. "These aren't eggs. These are hockey pucks," Sam said, showing Dean the rubbery mass of eggs before throwing them out.

"Why didn't you eat dinner?" Dean asked, turning off the tap and inspecting her hand.

"I forgot."

"You forgot? Did you eat _anything_ yesterday?"

She nodded. "I had coffee. And the Richardsons gave me a sandwich. And Max Levitt insisted we share a pot of tea. But then I got a call telling me I was late for work and I have a retail job that runs through dinner time and then there were a lot of distractions after that."

Dean grit his teeth and prayed, "Castiel, get your feathery butt back here. We need you."

Phoebe looked up at him with sad brown— _damnit_ —eyes and Dean's heart melted. "If you'd rather have a sandwich, that's fine," he told her. "You don't have to have eggs. Or if you do want eggs, _I'll_ make you eggs. You don't have to make them."

"Who doesn't know how to make eggs?" Sam muttered. "Haven't you ever made eggs before?"

"Not that I can recall," Phoebe said. "Though I would have expected that to fall into the category of 'like riding a bike'. I think I _would_ just like a sandwich. Thank you."

"Dude, leave her alone," Dean said. "And go get dressed!" he added when he realized that Sam was also just wandering around in boxers and a T-shirt.

"I'm sorry to be such a bother," Phoebe said, still sounding sad and sleepy.

"You're not a bother," Dean said. "You've been very helpful."

Phoebe slipped into his arms and hugging her in return was the most natural thing in the world. Except Dean was still in _his_ boxers and a certain part of his anatomy tended to be very optimistic first thing in the morning which meant this was about to get embarrassing. "I, uh, I need to go and …"

"Sam is in the bathroom," Phoebe said, without letting go. No question, she had to feel Dean's erection against her stomach, but she neither recoiled nor leaned into it. She just acted like it was normal and inconsequential.

"Phoebe, let me tell you something. You're an amazing person. I only wish …"

He could hear the bathroom door open and the moose came trotting out. "So, I've got us appointments with the car salesman and the grocery store cashier. And, if we switch our badges up and drive to Arizona, we've still got a shot at the car wash attendant. They haven't actually deported him yet. He's in holding, but they say he's going on the next bus which could be in the next few days."

"Great." Dean did a quick dash for his clothes and dodged around Sam making sure his groin faced _away_ from his brother the entire time. "Why don't you make Phoebe breakfast and I'll be right out."

From inside the locked bathroom, he heard Sam snark back, "Phoebe is not the only person here who eats."

"Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe," Dean muttered to himself, leaning his head on the bathroom door. "You're killing me here."

He turned around to find Castiel staring at the mirror.

"Jesus!"

"Hi."

"Warn a guy!"

"Sorry. I just had this weird knowledge that you wanted me. Like, not actual words. Just _knowing_. Is that what prayers are like?"

Dean clutched his clothing to his groin, which still hadn't settled down yet, and glared at Cas. "Your timing sucks, man. Just go out there and heal Phoebe. She burned her hand. And then _stay here_ until I'm dressed and _then_ we'll talk about what we're doing next. Okay?"

Castiel's gaze drifted down Dean's body. "So, stay here and watch you get dressed and then go heal Phoebe?"

"No!" Dean opened the bathroom door and pointed to the kitchen. He slammed the door more forcefully than necessary behind Cas. Seriously, amnesia was no excuse for being this difficult.

He hopped in the shower, which couldn't have taken more than three minutes tops, and quickly dressed. When he walked back out into the main room, he found Sam—and _only_ Sam—who was looking defensive.

"So I _made_ her breakfast," Sam said. "I _did_. And Cas healed her hand so everybody's _fine_."

"Where are Cas and Phoebe?"

"They went to get Hector," Sam said, crossing his arms.

"Who?"

"The guy from the car wash. Phoebe was upset about him being deported. She thought being deported to another country must be really scary if you don't have your memory. And then Cas suggested that he just go and get him and Phoebe wanted to be helpful and offered to go with him and I … I couldn't stop them! They just foomphfed! He does that."

"When we find whatever monster or demigod is responsible for the amnesia and the love spells, I'm gonna punch it in the face. I don't care if it's seven hundred feet tall and covered in spiders, I'm punching it _in the face_. I can't even put into words how awful this is."

"So you admit you're under a love spell?" Sam asked.

"Her eyes are _brown_ and I would have sworn on stacks of holy text that they were romance-novel blue and I've known her for going on _twenty-three hours_ and I have to bite my tongue to avoid begging her to come back to Kansas to live with us forever and ever. I want to just pick her up and snoodle her like a kitten. Whoever did this to me is going to get punched in the face _so many times_."


	14. At an immigration facility in Arizona …

The cell was hot. The food was inedible. The toilet was right there in front of everyone. There wasn't even soap at the sink. And worst of all, _everyone_ was angry. The other detainees. The guards. Himself.

And everyone kept speaking to him in Spanish, even the guards who spoke to each other in English and no amount of "no comprendo" deterred them. The only response he ever got back in English was, "Nice try, Espinoza."

He couldn't remember the words for brain injury or amnesia. He'd tried "recuerdo perdida," but one of the other detainees told him he was basically saying "I remember lost". "Cabeza mal" didn't get his point across any better. He'd tried asking for a "doctor" (which he was quite confident in) or an "enferma" which he thought meant nurse, but apparently meant sick.

As awful as it all was, sleeping under a bridge in Mexico was probably going to be worse.

"Hector Espinoza?"

He looked up to see a white man and woman standing outside the holding cell. The man looked like he'd started out dressed for business, but had lost his coat and tie somewhere along the way. The woman looked like one of the pretentiously rebellious cashiers at Whole Foods.

"Yes?" he responded hesitantly, wondering what new level of disaster had befallen him.

"Are you the Hector Espinoza who worked at a car wash in Michigan until you developed amnesia?" the woman asked. "We've found significantly more Hector Espinozas than we had planned for and, pretty much by definition, none of their identities have been well documented."

"Yeah, yeah, that's me!"

"Are you sure?" the man asked. "Tell us something only the real Hector Espinoza would know."

"Dude, I have _amnesia_. The real Hector Espinoza _doesn't know anything_ that only the real Hector Espinoza would know. I don't know anything from more than a week ago."

"Exactly a week ago?" the woman asked, jotting something down in a notebook.

"What's today?" Hector asked.

"Friday," she said.

"Then just over a week. It was a week ago, Thursday morning. I was working at the car wash and I thought I might be sick or something because I just felt disoriented. Not physically dizzy, but _mentally dizzy_. My boss was yelling at me to go faster and, as long as I was hosing down the cars, it was okay. I know how to do that. Easy. But then he asked me to go get more rags and I had to ask where they were and he told me, but then I had to ask where the supply closet was and he just yelled some more. I got through the day, but I knew something was really wrong. I couldn't remember anything and I wasn't even sure which was my name, because the guy was yelling at everybody, y'know, but eventually I figured out 'Hector' was me. And then my shift was over and I didn't even know where to go. I didn't know where home was. I didn't even know where the hospital was. Then I saw a policeman and I told him that I was sick and didn't know who I was, but he just arrested me for being drunk in public. Except I wasn't drunk. I swear. Even the people at the hospital agreed I wasn't drunk, but as soon as they said I wasn't contagious, the immigration people took me. That's all I know."

"Hector Espinoza," the woman said. "We are here to rescue you."

He probably should have been more grateful, but a week of sleep-deprivation and bad food had gotten to him and he just blurted out the first thing that popped into his head, "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"


	15. Sam gets 'help' researching …

Phoebe went to work at her retail job and Cas took off saying something about museums in Italy. 

Hector, at least, was happy to help Sam research in exchange for sandwiches and beer. So, he gave Hector the laptop to search online while Sam read through some of the books he'd brought with him.

"WebMD says that thyroid problems can cause memory loss," Hector said. "Or infections. Oh, here's one. Amnesiac shellfish poisoning. Oh, nevermind, additional symptoms include vomiting and diarrhea."

"Hector, what did we just talk about?" Sam asked, mentally steeling himself to have this argument for the third time in the last two hours.

"Yeah, but _magic_? Seriously?"

"You were _teleported_ here by _an angel_!" Sam pointed out. "Why are you having such a hard time wrapping your mind around this? Magic is real. Amnesiac shellfish poisoning wouldn't give an _angel_ amnesia. We're looking for spells or magical creatures."

"But shouldn't we at least rule out the more reasonable …"

"If you were just sick or injured, Cas could heal you. If Cas can't heal it, it's magic— _powerful_ magic."

It might go better if Hector were limited to the books and Sam searched online, but the books presented another problem. 

"I don't suppose you can read Latin?" Sam asked.

"Bro, I don't even read Latin American."

"That's not a language."

"See!"


	16. At Kayla's mom's place …

The interview with the car salesman had been a waste. It turned out the guy only agreed to the interview in the hopes of trying to sell Dean a car. Unlike most of the others' employers, the car dealership didn't seem to care whether the dude could remember his name or not as long as he knew a tire from a steering wheel. Dean almost liked the guy, but then he went and insulted the Impala by saying she wasn't likely to last much longer and that was that.

Dean moved on to the next amnesiac, the grocery store clerk. She lived in a small home she shared with her mother and her young son. He sat down with the women in their living room and flipped open his notebook—Phoebe's notebook technically since she'd already made a lot of notes on the case. The toddler stared at him for several minutes before deciding that Dean wasn't that interesting after all and wandering off.

"His name is Toby," Kayla Purcell told him. "Apparently I named him after Toby Keith who is a big country singer. If you ask me, I think Toby is something you name a Basset Hound, but, hey, it's a free country. At least I didn't name him Keanu Moonbeam or something, yes?"

"Right you are," Dean agreed. He smiled at Kayla's mother, who'd been observing the conversation with a frown. "So, ma'am, seeing as Kayla has amnesia, I was hoping you might be more helpful in reconstructing her day. Did you notice anything odd the day your daughter lost her memory? Did she eat or drink anything unusual? Comment on any odd odors or sounds? Had she encountered anyone unusual recently?"

The woman shook her head. "I know she'd been a little stressed out that day. Toby had the sniffles and the daycare will send him home at the slightest hint of a fever. I work during the day myself so it's always a scramble when the baby's sick. So we were very focused on Toby and making sure he was all right and were both just praying he'd make it through the day. When I got the call, I was just sure it was going to be about Toby and was shocked when it was Kayla who'd taken ill."

"I do not think 'ill' is the right word," Kayla added. "I am not sick. I just don't remember how to work a stupid cash register. I am not a dumb woman. Show me how to work a cash register and I will work the cash register. How hard can it be? But they send me home anyway. Fine. I don't care. I stay with the baby."

The "baby" was wandering around the living room chewing on a shoe.

"Should he be putting that in his mouth?" Dean wondered aloud.

Kayla shrugged. "Germs are good for you. It builds up your immunity."

Kayla's mother again frowned and gave her daughter a side-eye.

"Ma'am, other than the memory loss, have you noticed Kayla acting strangely?"

"Well, more like she's _not_ acting strangely when she should be," the woman said. "I mean, not to say she should be acting strange, but … she's … unusually normal."

"Unusually normal?" Dean repeated.

"For Kayla, yes."

This sounded like it was going to get complicated so Dean turned to a fresh page in his notebook. But the next page wasn't empty. The writing was a flowing cursive, unlike the blocky printing with which Phoebe had taken her case notes in, and the words were just odd phrases. "… blue eyes … blue skies … love's disguise … hopes rise … something lies … hope dies … broken ties … lover's sighs … worldly wise …" Dean turned the page only to find more. "Lovers binding … roads winding … something finding, minding …"

"… because she's usually rather high strung, honestly," the woman was saying.

Dean quickly flipped all the way to the back of the book to find a blank page. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Like a lot of young mothers, raising their first child, Kayla's prone to be nervous," the woman said. "She hovers. She gets frustrated easily when Toby is being difficult. She'd be washing that boy's mouth out with Listerine if she saw him chewing on a shoe. But now … well, she's really got a much better perspective on things. If anything, I'd say this experience has been good for her. I know that doesn't make sense, but … she's just a lot more relaxed, you know."

Kayla shrugged. "It is what it is, yes?"

Dean agreed and wrapped up the interview. Like every other interview it was a complete waste of time. He hurried back to the car and then just sat there at the curb flipping through Phoebe's notebook. Between the shopping list and the to-do list and the case notes were pages and pages of … nonsense, the only consistent theme seemed to be … love.

_Holy shit. **Phoebe** is the one who cast the love spell,_ Dean thought with a shudder.


	17. Eating popcorn on Phoebe's couch …

Watching other people fight was kind of entertaining. Hector didn't seem to agree and suggested they leave Dean and Phoebe to argue in private, but Cass wouldn't miss this for the world.

"We need popcorn," Sam said. Even though Cass knew he was joking, he figured—what the hell, as long as I have super powers—and zapped himself to the local movie theater and back, returning with three jumbo tubs of popcorn. Hector, Sam, and Cass sat on the couch and watched the fireworks.

"Why aren't we more worried about this?" Hector whispered to Sam.

"Because Dean is a dumbass," Sam whispered back.

"Explain this!" Dean demanded.

"How can I explain it if I don't remember writing it?" Phoebe asked.

"So you _say_ ," Dean said.

"Wait, so now you're accusing me of lying about having amnesia? When I've done nothing but help you? I invited you into my home."

"These love spells are in _your_ journal!" Dean said. " _You_ wrote them!"

"Maybe I did, but I _don't_ remember."

"Convenient," Dean muttered.

"Excuse me?" Phoebe said.

"Am I the only one here that's uncomfortable?" Hector asked.

Cass nodded and munched on another handful of popcorn.

"Dean, can I see the spells?" Sam asked.

Dean flung the notebook at Sam and continued ranting. "I don't fall in love like this. This is not me. This isn't how I am. I've know you a couple of days and I'm madly in love with you and that's _not possible_!"

"You're madly in love with me?" Phoebe repeated tilting her head as if Dean might make sense from another angle.

"With every fiber of my being because _you_ put a love spell on me!"

"Dean, these don't look like love spells," Sam said, flipping through the notebook.

"What?"

"They're not love spells. They look like poetry or song lyrics or, on some pages, it's just lists of rhymes. I don't think Phoebe cast a love spell on you. I think she just writes crappy love songs."

"Hey, now," Cass chided. "These are not crappy. Look at this bit about snuggling in the rain. That's sweet."

"It's not spells?" Dean said, deflating a little.

"Nope."

"Oh."

"I think somebody owes somebody an apology," Cass said.

"Uh …" Dean looked sheepishly at Phoebe who was still scowling at him. "I'm, I'm really sorry."

Phoebe nodded to herself before saying. "Fuck you, Dean Winchester."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yes, the spelling is deliberate. No one has told him how the name is spelled so he's still thinking, "Like Cass Elliot.")


	18. Exposition and Chinese take-out …

And it just continued like that, beating their heads against the wall _all weekend_. Sam was ready to rip his hair out.

Dean and Phoebe had interviewed every single known victim and their families and coworkers. They were perfect because anyone who didn't succumb to Phoebe batting her eyelashes at them was a sucker for Dean batting his eyelashes at them. They'd gotten every bit of information out of every single person that they could think of questioning and it hadn't gotten them anywhere.

Sam checked in with Garth to see if any other hunters had ever reported encountering this kind of mass amnesia before.

Hector typed up everybody's notes, because it turned out he was a whiz with Excel and had a pretty respectable typing speed. 

And Cas … Cas sort of fucked around and flitted in and out and brought them pizza from Chicago, something called bitterballen from Amsterdam, and clam chowder from Boston. But he was gone more often than he was there and he was never particularly useful.

Which was really just as well, because Dean got cranky every time Cas flirted with Hector or Sam, all while stubbornly denying that he was jealous and while still swooning over Phoebe whenever their eyes met. For her part, Phoebe was still sulking in the wake of his false accusation about her practicing witchcraft on him.

"I'm thinking it's some sort of Greek thing," Dean announced a few minutes into his shift on the laptop. Sam was already rolling his eyes and he almost longed for Hector's forays into WebMD, because Dean's web searches always led to a lot more arguing.

"Why do you think it's 'a Greek thing'?" Sam asked warily.

"The ancient Greeks had a lot of that man-love stuff going on and Cas is obviously under a gay spell, so that seems likely, right? We should check with the local museums and see if they have anything related to Greek gods."

"Has it occurred to you that maybe Cas isn't under 'a gay spell'?" Sam asked.

" _You_ are the one who first brought up love spells," Dean said.

"Cas doesn't seem to be in love with anyone in particular," Sam said. "And despite getting a little handsy when he was drunk, he mostly just strikes me as bored and a little unfocused."

"And also gay," Dean said. "A little hard to deny the gay."

"Lord knows you've tried," Sam muttered under his breath. "My point," he added, "is that you're assuming that this is a new thing."

"Huh?"

Sam took a measured breath and said, "Maybe Cas has always been a little bit into guys."

"Cas isn't gay," Dean said flatly. "We know he's had sex with women, or at least one woman. And don't forget that time he kissed Meg."

Sam just wanted to beat his head against the table. "Maybe he's bi."

"I still think it's a Greek thing," Dean said, pretty much ending the conversation.

Castiel popped back in, this time carrying Chinese takeout. 

"Let me guess," Dean said, "Chinese food from Beijing?"

"From the place over on Westnedge Avenue actually," Cas said. "I prefer American 'Chinese' food."

It was Monday night and Phoebe admitted that she was getting anxious about the impending "REMEMBER TUESDAY" and still not knowing who Olivia was or what sort of present she needed to buy for her.

"You said your coworker Jennifer seemed to know what was up with Tuesday. Maybe she knows about Olivia, too. Why don't you text her?" Dean suggested.

"Why didn't you just ask her at work?" Hector said.

"Jennifer seemed to think our boss wouldn't respond well to learning I have amnesia so we've been avoiding the topic," Phoebe answered.

"That's ridiculous," Hector said.

"Says the man who almost got deported when he asked a police officer for help," Dean pointed out.

"Yeah, but they're not going to deport the white girl."

"White girls can still get fired," Cas said, "and everybody's got to make a living."

Sam helped Cas dole out the take-out containers, already resigned to Dean stealing all the beef out of the beef with broccoli.

Phoebe squinted at her phone. "Jennifer suggests a teddy bear or a box of diapers."

"Baby shower?" Sam asked.

"That's it!" Dean said. "You have to buy a gift for a baby shower on Tuesday."

"No," Cas said. "No one would have a baby shower on a Tuesday. A baby shower would be on the weekend. And no one schedules parties at a specific time like 10:42. That sounds more like a plane arrival time."

"Oh," Sam said, realizing the implications of Phoebe's to-do list. "You have relatives flying in for the baby shower. That's why you had to hide your—" Sam cut himself off in the face of Dean's glare. "—stuff."

Phoebe frowned. "I hope I'm not supposed to pick them up at the airport. My manager mentioned that I'd scheduled off tomorrow as a personal day. He seemed offended by it."

"Oh, yeah, that sounds like you're picking somebody up at the airport," Sam said. "Do you have a 'Mom' or 'Dad' in your contact list? Or anyone else with the last name Cooper?"

"There's a 'Dad'," Phoebe said after scrolling through her phone.

Dean shifted uneasily and shoveled in a mouthful of beef. He might have even accidentally eaten a vegetable in the process.

"What should I do?" Phoebe asked.

"Oh, for the love of—" Cas grabbed the phone out of Phoebe's hands. "This isn't rocket science. 'Hi, Dad. So tomorrow? What was the plan again?' And send. Done." Cas tossed the phone back to Phoebe. "You're welcome."

The phone beeped a few minutes later and Phoebe read aloud, "'10:42 and tell that dumbass Raymond that I expect him to be on time for a change.'"

Cas sighed, took the phone from Phoebe's limp hands, and typed back, "'So Raymond is picking you up from the airport then?'"

He set the phone down again and reached for a carton of sesame chicken.

The wait was only a few seconds that time. Phoebe picked the phone up and read, "'Airport? Are you high? Have I set foot on a plane once in the last four and a half decades? Amtrak station.'"

Sam pulled up the train schedule online and confirmed. "There's an Amtrak train due from Chicago at 10:42 tomorrow morning."

"Perfect," Cas said. "Now just find Raymond in your contact list and remind him to get his dumb ass to the Amtrak station by 10:30 tomorrow. Problem solved."

"No, he said 10:42," Phoebe said.

"But if you want him to be on time 'for a change' you have to tell him it's earlier than that. In fact you might want to say 10:15 just to be safe," Cas said.

"That seems dishonest," Phoebe said.

" _Really?_ " Dean said.

"Tell him 10:30," Hector said. "That's not lying. That's just rounding. Are there forks? My hands were not made for eating with sticks."

Phoebe nodded and typed the message and Sam got a fork from the kitchen for Hector.

"We should, uh, probably make ourselves scarce in the morning," Dean said. "I mean if your Dad's coming, he'll probably need the futon."

"Maybe he's staying with Raymond," Hector said. "Raymond could be her brother."

"He's in my contact list as Raymond Everson," Phoebe said.

"Probably your boyfriend then," Cas suggested, licking sauce off his fingers. "And it sounds like Dad doesn't approve."

"You know how dads are," Hector agreed.

"Why don't we just enjoy our dinner and worry about dads _tomorrow_ ," Dean suggested.

"I never know what to say to dads," Hector mused. "I just stand there like a dork going 'Helloooo!'"

"'Same to you, Pooh Bear, and twice on Thursdays,'" Cas said for no obvious reason.

"What was that?" Sam asked.

Cas shrugged. "Old line from a children's book. Pooh Bear says 'Hallo' and Eeyore says 'Same to you and twice on Thursdays.'"

"Why twice on Thursdays?" Dean asked.

Cas shook his head. "Christopher Robin interrupted them before Pooh Bear had a chance to ask. The world will never know."

There was a tiny little spark in the back of Sam's brain that was trying to make the leap between synapses. "Hang on," he said. "I have an idea."

He set aside his food and pulled a pad of yellow sticky notes out of the outside pocket of his computer bag and started writing dates on them. He then arranged them on the wall to form a giant calendar going back two months.

Then on a set of hot pink sticky notes he wrote down the names of all their amnesiacs.

"Okay, so first victim, school superintendent flips out while visiting one of the schools on a Thursday. Second victim, a student at that school is reported the following Tuesday. Next victim, the dog groomer, that Thursday. A week goes by with no new victims and then the next Friday and Saturday, the manicurist and the stay-at-home mom each seek medical help. Then there's a gap. Almost two weeks go by when the insurance agent loses his memory at work on a Thursday. Exactly one week later, the next Thursday, the grocery store clerk loses her memory in the middle of work. Two days later a college student is reported by campus security for sleeping in the library and she tells authorities she can't remember which dorm she belongs in. The next week is busy with the retired Filipino woman reported on Sunday, the CEO reported on Monday, Hector here arrested on Thursday, and the car salesman going to the hospital on Friday. And this last week it was Cas and Phoebe, both on Thursday morning. That is a lot of Thursdays."

"Okay, yeah," Dean agreed. "But there's a lot of not-Thursdays too."

"Yeah, but notice that almost all of those reported on Thursday got sick at work. We can pinpoint for sure the day they actually got amnesia. Nearly everyone else falls into the 'had been acting strangely for the last few days' category. The grade schooler had been withdrawn for days. Kenneth Richardson said that he had amnesia for quite awhile before admitting it to anyone. The college student had been sleeping in student lounges for at least a week. If you back-date these to a good estimate of when they actually contracted amnesia …" Sam rearranged the pink post-its until he'd paired most of them up on Thursdays. "Assuming two every Thursday, that means we have two unidentified amnesia victims out there, but we already agreed that was possible. There are a lot of scenarios where someone could slide through the cracks."

"So, two people every Thursday," Dean agreed. "I still don't get why. Is there some sort of amnesia god we don't know about who likes Thursdays?"

"I want to play a game," Sam announced. "We question people too directly and their memories lock up, but when you come at it kind of sideways, the victims often seem to know more than they realize. So, bear with me. Let's just go around the room. Hector, what's your favorite fruit?"

"I don't know."

"Don't over think it. Just pick a fruit. Okay, Dean and I will play too. I pick peaches."

"Strawberry," Hector said.

"Good. Dean?"

"Apple pie."

"Pie isn't a fruit," Sam said, feeling a little exasperated.

"Piña colada," Cas said. "If he can say apple pie, I can say piña colada."

"Apple pie," Phoebe agreed.

"No copying," Cas said. "Everyone should give their own answer."

"Cherry pie then," Phoebe decided.

"Okay fine," Sam said, opting to let them all slide. "Now favorite color. I'll pick blue."

"I was going to pick blue," Dean complained.

"You can still say blue," Sam said.

"Nah, no copying."

"Pick different shades of blue," Cas insisted. "There are hundreds of colors to chose from."

"I pick _blue_ blue," Dean said.

"Fine," Sam said. "I'll change mine to sky blue. Happy?"

Dean nodded.

"Red," Hector said.

"Raspberry," Cas said.

"Fruit was last round," Dean pointed out.

"Not raspberry the fruit. Raspberry the color."

"Raspberry isn't a color."

Cas glared at him and then started singing off key, " _She wore a raspberry beret. The kind you find in a second hand store. She wore a raspberry beret. And when it was warm she wouldn't wear much more._ "

"Oh, my God, never sing again."

"Phoebe," Sam prompted.

"Green," Phoebe said.

"What shade of green?" Cas asked, waving his chopsticks around in the air. "Like pea green or lime green or hunter green or kelly green or …?"

"Hunter green," Phoebe decided, poking at a carton of shrimp fried rice.

"Okay, next round," Sam said. "Let's do childhood fictional characters. Like Cas mentioned Pooh Bear earlier. I'm going to pick Snuffleupagus."

"Grover," Hector nodded.

"Cookie Monster," Dean said.

"They don't all have to be _Sesame Street_ ," Sam said.

"I'm sticking with Pooh Bear," Cas said with a shrug.

"Eeyore," Phoebe said without hesitation.

"Next round. Three things your dad always said."

"I don't remember my dad," Hector protested.

"Yeah, well neither did Kenneth Richardson, but he still came up with three bits of fatherly wisdom. In his case it was …" Sam checked his notes. "'Life is short, smile while you still have teeth. Never vote for a man you wouldn't buy a car from.' And 'The best investment you can make is in the next generation.' We're just looking for those things that _seem_ like the kind of thing your dad would say. Dean, why don't you lead this round."

"Why are you making _me_ go first?"

"Because if I go first, you'll just accuse me of stealing your answers."

Dean rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically as if he were being truly put upon, but then began counting off his quotes. He held up his thumb and said, "'Only babies whine.'" He flicked out his pointer finger and said, "'Never pick up a hitchhiker in a prom dress.'" He added his middle finger to form a mock gun which he aimed at Sam and said, "'There's always time to clean your gun.'"

Sam nodded and listed off, "'Follow orders or people die. Always burn the bodies.' And 'Never mix bourbon and girlie drinks.'"

Cas paused his eating and pointed his chopsticks between the two them. "I'm not sure which of your dads worries me more." Phoebe whispered something in Castiel's ear and he added, "Oh, that explains so much."

"And that last one wasn't Dad; that was Bobby," Dean pointed out.

"Same diff," Sam said. "Hector, what have you got?"

"Um … Shit dads say … okay … 'My house, my rules.' Uh … 'Yo, while you're up, get me a beer.' And, uh, 'Children should be seen and not heard.'"

"Ouch," Cas said. "So many daddy issues. This room is bringing me down."

"If you can do better," Dean said, "go for it."

"'Righty-tighty, lefty-loosy.'"

"Solid," Dean said.

"'If in doubt, duct tape.'"

"Wise words," Hector agreed.

"And 'If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy,'" Cas finished.

"Dude, those are all quotes from _The Red Green Show_ ," Dean protested. "Your dad is _not_ Red Green."

"You don't know that he's not. Have you met my dad?"

"No, but I know he's not Red Green. The world would actually be a better place if your dad was Red Green."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Okay, Phoebe, your turn," Sam interrupted.

"'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone, but love your neighbor as yourself.'"

"Look," Cas said. "Someone else's dad is nice and sane, too."

Phoebe picked up a shrimp with her chopsticks and stared thoughtfully at it for a moment before saying, "'Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you and ye shall not eat of their flesh.'" She then ate it with a shrug.

"I may have to retract that 'sane' comment," Cas said.

"Somebody really doesn't like shrimp," Dean added, looking a little horrified.

"One more, Phoebe," Sam said, even though he felt his point had already been made.

"'I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.'"

Cas blinked. "Okay, then. _Definitely_ retracting that 'sane' comment."

Phoebe nodded and added, "I think my dad might be a cult leader."

Sam had been watching Dean carefully through the whole exchange and he thought the lightbulb over his head had started to flicker right around the thing with the shrimp, but—no question—the other shoe had _finally_ dropped.

"I owe you an apology, Dean," Sam said. "You know _exactly_ who you're in love with."

"You think … they … how?"

"Look at how much it would explain," Sam said, pointing at his wall chart. "Assuming the college student actually contracted amnesia the week before security reported her, that matches her up with the insurance agent who was suddenly ranting about Thomas Jefferson. She was probably working on a history paper or something. And, really, think about it. Phoebe follows you down the street and immediately volunteers to start working a case like that's normal for her?"

"Okay, can we get some more explanations," Cas—or the man who _looked_ like Cas—said. "Because, y'all are being really cryptic."

"Oh, my God, I'm gonna hurl," Dean whimpered putting his head in his hands.

"Like super cryptic," not-Hector agreed.

"Okay, for the last eight weeks, every Thursday two people have developed amnesia _and_ been body swapped," Sam said. "Week one it was a school superintendent and a second grader. The superintendent, now with the mental capacity of a young child, is instantly hysterical and the hospital notes that she seems confused by large words and complex situations. The second grader meanwhile is distant and doesn't want to play with her peers, but is able to fake her way through for a few days because she has the mental capacity of an adult."

"So now body-swapping is a thing?" not-Hector asked, looking a little ill.

"Week two, we only know about Max Levitt the dog groomer and for week four Kenneth Richardson is also a solo victim, but if my theory holds two other people got amnesia those same Thursdays and haven't reported it.

"When I asked Mr. Richardson why he went so long without admitting his condition, he said he was afraid of being committed to a mental hospital," she—Phoebe, but apparently not Phoebe—said. "It's possible Kenneth Richardson was swapped with someone who has a history of mental illness. And Max Levitt seemed especially preoccupied with the novelty of being outside. It's plausible that he changed places with an elderly person who doesn't get out much."

"Exactly. And every week other than those two, we can pair folks up exactly two per week. You," Sam said, pointing to not-Hector, "are very likely Joe Atherton, a car salesman who works at the same dealership as Hector Espinoza."

"Wait, so you're saying that Phoebe and I … Oh, my god, you're saying that Raymond is _my_ boyfriend? Oh, Marybeth was right, I am dumping that loser. I've been effectively missing with a case of body-swap amnesia since Thursday and he hasn't called once. Give me that." He snatched Phoebe's—his own—phone back and flipped through the history. "One message. _One_. In response to my message about picking Dad up at the train station and what is his reply? 'K'. That's it. The entire message. 'K'. He is _so_ dumped ... y'know, _after_ he picks Dad up from the train station, because I am not dealing with that shit. Fuck."

"Fuck," Dean echoed.

"So this means I'm an angel," Cas said, a familiar look of contemplation crossing her unfamiliar face.

"Fuck," Dean repeated.

"Aw, shit," Phoebe said, flinging his chopsticks down. "I just realized this means I don't really have super powers. I mean, they're not mine. When I get my memory back, I'll just be human me again. This sucks."

"Fuck!" Dean said yet again and, even though Sam had never once seen Dean panic, he was pretty sure that's what was happening now.

"Are you all right?" Cas asked, staring intently at Dean with her strange brown eyes. 

"I need some air."

Dean sprinted from the apartment.

There was an awkward silence in his wake.

"Should I perhaps …?"

"Yes! Go after him!" Sam said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Piña Coladas for everyone who called it. :-)
> 
> (For the sake of the narration, pronouns will match the biological sex of the body in question, but henceforth names revert to the occupying personality. My rationalization is that due to the amnesia no one has a strong sense of who they are and the short time-frame hasn't allowed for a lot of introspection about gender identity. Mainly it's shorthand to avoid having to constantly remind the reader which person has blue eyes and dark hair and which person has brown eyes and pink hair, because that would just be clunky and awkward.)


	19. At the Impala …

She found him across the street, just leaning against his car and staring at the sky. At first Castiel had feared that Dean would try to drive away, but it seemed that he just needed to touch the car, to ground himself. She joined him at his side and mimicked his lean against the car.

"This is progress?" she said, enough of a query in her voice to invite him to explain the problem. When he said nothing, she added, "We have another symptom. Something else to search for. Memory loss _and_ an exchange of consciousness. We're closer to finding a solution now."

Dean took a deep breath and let it out just as slowly. "Yeah," he finally agreed. "We're going to fix this. We'll get your memory back and get everybody back in the right body. It's all going to be good."

Nothing in his voice suggested he believed it was all going to be good.

"Dean."

He finally looked at her. He smiled, but there was no joy in his eyes.

"Dean, please tell me what's wrong. I don't have a lot to base my assumptions on so playing guess-the-crisis with you is rather frustrating."

Dean shook his head and smiled even brighter. "Nothing's wrong. We're on this. I'm sure Sam's in there researching his little heart out and everything will be back to square in no time."

"All right. Twenty questions it is," Castiel said. "I can only assume that you and I have some kind of history that makes our recent romantic association distasteful to you. I thought you and Castiel were friends, but perhaps I was mistaken. You dislike me for some reason."

"What? No. No, man, we _are_ friends. You are my best friend. We're just not—we're not _kissing_ friends. This is just a little embarrassing is all."

"Why?"

Dean groaned and looked back at the sky. "How do you not get ' _embarrassing_ '?"

"Why aren't we _kissing_ friends?" Castiel asked. "Is this about physical attraction?"

"Uh, yeah, I suppose."

Castiel nodded. She supposed that made sense. You couldn't make someone be attracted to a person they just weren't attracted to. It was sad, of course. She found Dean quite attractive herself. And based on Phoebe's flirtations while in Castiel's body, it seemed likely that that attraction extended to the body's physical responses as well. However, if the feeling was not mutual, there was little that could be done. 

"I understand," she said, as sympathetically as she could. "You find Phoebe Cooper's body attractive, but not James Novak's. I can see how that would be off-putting."

"It's not … Jimmy Novak is not unattractive. I'm not saying that. It's just that … you and I aren't like that, dude."

"Dude," Castiel echoed and she thought that she finally saw the stumbling block now. "Ah. This is about gender."

"Well, yeah. Duh."

It would probably have been best not to say more, but Castiel wanted to be clear. "But I have seen you flirt with men."

"I don't flirt with men," Dean said.

"I've watched you flirt with many people these past few days and I would estimate that as many of them were male as female."

"I don't … sometimes you have to be _nice_ to a witness get what you need. That's not the same as flirting."

Castiel nodded. That made sense. "What about the man outside the convenience store?"

"Huh?"

"That man outside the convenience store the other day. He wasn't a witness, but you were very _nice_ to him."

"That wasn't flirting either. _That_ was a cool motorcycle. I complimented the man on his bike. How is that flirting?"

"It was more the _way_ you said it," Castiel said, but she decided to let it go. It's just possible that she'd been projecting her own feelings onto the situation. The man with the motorcycle had been really quite attractive and she'd had very mixed feelings watching him and Dean exchange _pleasantries_. "I believe I see the distinction," she said, though she didn't quite. "Thank you for the clarification. Dude."

They leaned against the car in silence for awhile.

"I'm a little worried about Phoebe being in the driver's seat of your grace," Dean finally said. "That could go all kinds of squirrely." 

"I think he's been rather restrained given the circumstances," Castiel said, "but I think we will all feel better when this is sorted out."

She shivered, partly the night air, partly the sense of emptiness. To her surprise, Dean slid closer and draped his arm protectively around her. With a gentle squeeze, he repeated, "It's going to be okay."

Castiel leaned against the warmth of his body. She didn't dare do more although the temptation was strong. It wasn't her body to take liberties with and Dean had made it clear their relationship was exclusively platonic. 

She was so tired and so sad. Perhaps this is just what it felt like to be human when you were used to being an angel. Phoebe seemed to have quite a bit of energy with his 'grace' and all. Maybe Castiel would feel better when she was an angel again.

Dean's phone chirped and he pulled it out of his pocket. "Yeah? Uh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell him, uh, her, uh, whatever."

He hung up and then said, "Sam says he thinks he can have everybody switched back tomorrow morning about the time Phoebe's dad hits town."

"How?"

"He didn't say. Just said he thinks he can sort it out. He and Hector—" 

"Joe," Castiel corrected.

"Right, yeah. He and Joe are calling it a night. Phoebe's spending the night in Australia, something about surfers, but promised to be back first thing in the morning. We should probably turn in."

She agreed. 

They stood by the car for another twenty minutes before they finally went inside.


	20. Son of a Bitch …

Dean awoke to the sound of arguing.

"Five days! Five. And I get one letter. 'K'. You could have at least given me five, one for each day. 'Hello.' That would have been nice. All I'm saying is … Yes, five. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Today. Fine, don't count today. Four days then. You think I'm less pissed because it's only been four?"

Dean rolled over and yawned. Sam and Joe were eating cereal at the counter and ignoring the shouting. Castiel was openly staring at Phoebe who paced around the living room yelling into his cell phone.

"I have been sick, for your information, so _no_ I could not have called you just as easily as you could have called me. Yes, _too sick_ to use the phone as a matter of fact." Phoebe stopped pacing and dramatically sighed. Tucking the phone into his shoulder he quoted "'Oh, is that why you sound like like you swallowed a bullfrog?' Bastard. I'm having a very stressful week and I don't need your crap right now. Fine! I will! Bye!"

Dean rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up. "Raymond?" 

Phoebe nodded. Dean was sort of kicking himself for not having figured it out sooner. "Castiel" hadn't been himself _at all_ for the past few days and chalking it all up to the amnesia had been pretty sloppy on their part. Granted it wasn't the first time Cas had lost his marbles on them, but, yeah, he should have at least suspected a lot sooner.

And Cas … she was watching her doppelganger through narrowed eyes with such a familiar intensity that Dean couldn't deny it was Cas in there. Should have known all along. The idea that perhaps, on some level, he _had_ known … that was an idea he tamped down quickly. She was pretty; the outside of her, that part was very pretty. And the inside was just very familiar and he'd mistaken that for … Cas noticed he was awake and smiled at him. Dean knew he smiled back without even meaning to and he got just that tiny bit dizzy as blood rushed places it had no business going with this many people in the room. So, okay, yeah. If Cas had been a chick, they probably would have banged years ago, but Cas was not a chick, or at least she was only a chick temporarily. Speaking of which … 

"Yo, Sam, what's the plan today?" Dean asked, casually bunching the blanket in his lap.

"First, we have to pick up my dad at the Amtrak station," Phoebe interrupted. 

Dean ignored him. "You sounded pretty confident last night that you'd figured this out. You think we can get everybody sorted out today? What do we need? Holy water? Curses? Machetes?"

"Unfortunately, my only plan involves asking really nicely," Sam admitted. "And by 'asking nicely' I fully expect you'll be swearing and making threats, but we're up against something we've never defeated, so I'm thinking our best bet is for you to say you've learned your lesson and ask for the big undo on this one."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Fortunately," Sam continued without answering him, "Trixie's is on the way to the Amtrak station."

"Son of a bitch!"


	21. Cup o' Joe …

Joe (who still wasn't completely convinced that his name wasn't Hector) rode along with Phoebe (the dude) in his car, while Cas (the pretty pink-haired lady) rode along with Sam and Dean in theirs. 

Joe was having some difficulty keeping the names straight, particularly since "Phoebe" didn't quite fit the tall, dark-haired man, but everyone else insisted, so Joe just went with it. It had been a pretty confusing week all around.

Phoebe pulled up next to the black car in front of a block of storefronts. If he'd had any money on him, Joe would have hit the coffee shop next door. He didn't feel sufficiently caffeinated to cope. But between amnesia and immigration—with amnesia _not_ being the more traumatic of the two—Joe didn't have two nickels to rub together.

Joe could tell Sam and Dean were arguing about something before he even got out of the car, but he was learning that the fewer questions he asked, the fewer answers he was given. Since he hadn't liked any of their answers so far, it was best to keep quiet.

Phoebe had no such qualms. "What's up?"

Dean stepped back to show him the sign propped in the shop window. It read, "To accommodate a family reunion, Trixie's will open at 11:00am today." The letters were written in a raised cursive that swirled across the sign. Joe thought it looked like the words had been piped out in icing and that's when he realized the shop sold cupcakes and frosted cookies and he decided that that's probably exactly what it was.

"We believe Trixie is a magical trickster. They are often associated with sugary sweets," Cas explained. "However, the shop is closed."

"So, plan B is we burn it to the ground," Dean grumbled, but Sam shook his head.

"No one is burning anything. Yet." Sam peered inside the empty shop. "I think the 'family reunion' is just part of the joke. We should go get Phoebe's dad and then come back."

"Y'all can stay here," Phoebe volunteered. "Cas should come with me though since my dad will recognize her."

Cas nodded, but frowned all the same.

"And _don't_ tell him about the amnesia or the body-swapping. This is the sort of thing that freaks parents out."

"Oh," Cas said. "How do we explain …?" 

"We don't."

"Cas," Dean said, bending down slightly to the woman's height. "Just let Phoebe do all the talking. All you have to do is stand there and look like Phoebe. Bring him back to the coffee shop. We'll explain later _if_ we have to."

"Okay."

"Good girl."

Cas and Dean shared an odd look that Joe couldn't quite read and then Cas and Phoebe drove away. 

Joe hated to ask for a hand-out, but the coffee shop was _right there_ taunting him. "Um, speaking of coffee … I don't have any cash on me, but …"

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Sam agreed and the three of them went next door and got a table.

Joe meditated with his coffee, calmed by the very feel of the hot cup in his hands. He tried his best not to even listen to Sam and Dean debating which of the various trickster figures they might be dealing with. Joe had heard of Puck and Dionysus and Coyote and Loki, but they also tossed around a dozen names that didn't sound familiar at all. Their principal suspects seemed to be Dionysus "on account of the gay thing" and someone else they referred to obliquely as "the" trickster.

"But he's dead," Dean said.

"That never stopped either of us," Sam said.

"This is some really good coffee," Joe said.

The Amtrak station was apparently super close, because Cas and Phoebe returned shortly with an older man. He was a good fifteen or twenty years older than Joe had expected so either Phoebe was a late-life baby or Papa Cooper had lived a rugged life. Possibly both. 

He was wearing a fishing hat and suspenders over a plaid shirt and Dean snickered and said, "Phoebe, I apologize, your dad _is_ Red Green."

"Dan," the man said, by way of introduction. Turning to Cas, he asked, "Who are all these losers?"

"Sam. Dean. Joe." 

Everyone said the requisite number of hellos. Joe helped Phoebe retrieve their additional coffees and soon everyone was sitting around awkwardly clutching their cups.

"So, I understand Raymond got dumped," Dan said. "We're at least starting off the visit with good news."

There was a half-hearted murmur of agreement from a table of people who had never met Raymond and thus had no strong opinions one way or the other.

"Who are you again?" Dan asked Dean.

Cas needlessly repeated the names around the table, but the old guy waved her off. "I got the names, honey. Who _are_ they?"

"Well, Joe sells cars locally," Cas said and Phoebe quickly cut in.

"And Sam and Dean are in town investigating a disease outbreak in town. They're federal agents with the CDC. We've had a number of unexplained cases of amnesia over the past two months."

"Don't look like federal agents to me," the man said suspiciously. Joe thought that Dan and Sam might be wearing the same shirt, so it seemed funny that the old man was making an issue of dress code.

"What is it _you_ do?" Dean asked, deflecting the attention.

"Retired," the old man said gruffly.

"What _did_ you do?"

"Made a lot of money back in the early seventies and invested wisely. Been living a quiet life of ease ever since."

"Made a lot of money how?"

"So, thank God, Raymond's gone!" Phoebe blurted out. "Am I right?"

"Yeah, fuck Raymond!" Joe agreed. Phoebe's dad glared at him and he meekly added "Helloooo" under his breath.

"So you're just passing through then?" Dan asked Dean. "Pity. Never seen my little girl look at anybody quite like that." He waved his coffee cup at Cas who, as usual, had been watching Dean intently. 

Dean flinched and blushed and then stood up. "It was nice to meet you, but Sam and I have a meeting next door that we have to get to. Enjoy your visit, Mr. Cooper."

Sam stood and picked up his coffee as well as the coffee that Dean had left behind in his rush to get to the door.


	22. Kissy kissy …

The shop was open and lit and the sign from earlier was gone. A bell above the door rang when they entered and Trixie bustled out from the back carrying a tray of cookies.

"Hello again, boys," she cooed.

She looked so harmless that Dean _almost_ felt guilty about wanting to drop her in a pit full of alligators.

"Look, let's not beat around the bush," Dean said. "We know it was you. Ha ha. Good one. But it's over. Put everyone back in their own bodies. Give everyone their memories back. Nullify the love spell."

"Love spell?" Trixie asked, looking genuinely confused.

"He thinks you put him under a love spell," Sam explained.

Trixie dropped the tray of cookies on the counter with a rough thunk. "My God, Sam, your brother is dumber than a _rock_."

"Yeah, I know," Sam said, because sometimes Sam was a dick that way, "but a lot of innocent people are caught up in this so if you could just _please_ put everyone back the way they were."

"Just so we're clear," Trixie said. "This isn't just about Dean and Cas. This wasn't _just_ an elaborate joke to see how funny it would be if Cas had tits. Although, you have to admit, that part worked out _really_ well."

"Tell us what it was then," Dean asked, nobly resisting the urge to take the old woman's head off.

"Well," Trixie said, putting the cookies into the display one by one. "As is often the case, it all started with a couple of teenage boys, because teenage boys are idiots. It was two high school basketball players to be specific. Last year, the school board changed the academic requirements for participants in team sports."

"Is this story going to take long?" Dean asked.

"Yes. Deal with it."

"Dean, please," Sam said, shushing him. To Trixie he said, " _Please_ continue. Thank you."

"It wasn't even a particularly stringent standard. It's not like they had to be straight A students to play on the basketball team. Even the school board only expects so much from a jock. But these two idiots decided it was easier to cheat on a test than to spend five minutes studying for an honest C. So that was dumb move number one. They got caught, obviously, and the teacher turned them over to the principal who—because they were star athletes—asked for a ruling from the superintendent. She had every intention of giving them a slap on the wrist and keeping them on the team, but—dumb move number two—before she could say anything our geniuses decide to try and intimidate her with a lot of bravado and sexist insults. At one point, one of the boys even grabbed his crotch and made vulgar suggestions. The best part is that this meeting took place in the principal's office which has a security camera recording at all times. So, guess whose parents get called in for a meeting that Friday. And, now, for dumb move number three."

Trixie finished putting away the cookies and leaned on the counter. 

"Their history teacher had been doing a module on local folklore, which the boys had been paying almost no attention to at all, but apparently one of the lectures on tricksters caught their ear. Anyway, the dumbasses set up this summoning ritual in the woods out near the nature center. And it was this complete hod-podge of Ojibwe and Potawatomi and stuff that I think they got from video games, a lot more European folklore rituals than native. Because, you know, that's _so much_ less work than memorizing a dozen vocabulary words for science class. Their goal was to make the superintendent forget the whole thing with a side of 'she needs to understand how hard it is to be a student today.'"

"Wait," Sam said, "so their ritual actually worked?"

"Aw, hell, no," Trixie said. "If they'd gotten what they were trying to summon, it would have eaten their eyeballs. In that regard, their incompetent cultural appropriation was to their advantage. No, but it was just close enough to my frequency that it got my attention. And it seemed pretty funny, which is my schtick. So, I swap the superintendent for the second grader and haze over their memories. Retracing her steps to try and figure out why she's ill, the school board finds the recording of the cheating dumbasses and they are in just as much trouble anyway. Meanwhile, Ms. Superintendent is getting a chance to see what one of her schools is like from a student's perspective and an ungrateful little snotnose second grader is learning that the life of an adult isn't as easy as she thought."

"Why all the others?" Sam asked.

"Because it was funny. Duh," Trixie said. "And it's all very karmic. I swapped a homeless man for a CEO and the homeless guy turns out to be better at running the CEO's company than he was. And Mr. CEO who is always ranting about how poor people are just lazy and how he would do this and that and the other thing if it happened to him … _that_ guy has been wearing the same underwear for two weeks. Your buddy, Joe? He's a racist dick who thinks he's better than everyone else. Even with amnesia, Hector has sold almost _twice_ his weekly average since they swapped. Trust me, _everyone_ is learning very valuable lessons."

Trixie rolled her eyes at Dean.

"Everyone except this idiot, that is."

"He's learned his lesson," Sam said. "He has. He just doesn't like admitting it in front of people. Please."

"Pretty please?" Trixie asked.

"Pretty please with a cherry on top," Sam agreed.

"Kiss me," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"Powerful magic requires strong symbolism. One kiss."

Sam turned to Dean and glowered. "You. Owe. Me."

He then leaned across the counter and gave the elderly woman a peck on the lips.

"… per swap," Trixie added. "So, that was one and the superintendent and the second grader are back as they should be. Seven more pairs to go."

Sam huffed and bitch-faced and Trixie backed off a little.

"Okay, okay. Old broad is not your thing. I get that. But I can be anyone you want me to be. Maybe a familiar face?"

And in the next instant it was Ruby, still wearing Trixie's frilly apron, standing behind the counter licking her lips at Sam.

Sam flinched away.

"No? Did you like the blonde model better?" she asked and it was the blonde Ruby as they'd first met her.

"No," Sam said firmly, "no evil exes."

Miley Cyrus waggled her tongue. "Pick your poison, Sammy. I can be _anyone_ you want."

"How about you drop the disguise entirely."

Gabriel smirked back at them. "You understand this isn't the real me either. The real me would burn the corneas out of your skull."

"Whatever. Do you still have a human trapped in there? Someone like Jimmy Novak?"

"No, no. I'm like Cas. Free and clear, sole tenant of my vessel. I've been that way for ages."

"Good." And then Sam grabbed the front of Gabriel's apron and pulled him half over the counter and planted a kiss on him.

"Ew," Dean said, stepping back. He was almost sure he'd seen a tongue, which he didn't want to think about at all.

They didn't break apart for several seconds and when they did, Gabriel said, "Impressive, but that still only counts as one kiss. The dog groomer and elderly woman are back to normal."

Sam growled and then walked around the counter and shoved Gabriel against the wall. Dean turned away just as their lips met, but he could not avoid the horrid slurping sounds from behind him.

"Three," Sam said.

"The manicurist and the soccer mom are all square," Gabriel said.

More slurping.

"Four."

"Insurance agent and college student as they should be."

More slurping and, holy crap, somebody moaned.

"Five," Sam panted.

"The cashier and the old Filipino lady are good."

Slurping. Smacking. Dean considered walking out, but he didn't trust what Gabriel might try if he weren't here to chaperone.

"Six," Sam gasped.

"CEO in his mansion. Homeless dude in his alley." Gabriel sounded a little breathless too, which didn't seem right. Did archangels breath?

Smack.

"Seven," Sam said and he sounded really out of breath now.

"Joe is back at the car dealership and Hector is next door enjoying a sugary cup of coffee."

"Do they remember everything?" Dean asked, glancing over his shoulder and immediately wishing he hadn't. Sam was resting his head on Gabriel's shoulder and Gabriel had his hands on Sam's waist.

"Oh, they remember _everything_ ," Gabriel said, winking at him. "Wouldn't be much point if they didn't. Joe's going to remember what it was like to ask for help and be treated like a criminal _and_ he's going to remember how easily Hector did the job that he's always bragging proves he's a bigshot. Everyone remembers both sides."

"How can they remember _both_?"

"I used my power to transfer their consciousness, but their physical brains stayed where they were, recording it all. When Castiel gets his memory back, he's going to know who he was before the amnesia, but he's also going to remember every moment with you when he was in Phoebe's body _and_ he's going to remember every man that Phoebe danced with in Paris. So, yeah, it's a good thing that you and 'Phoebe' never got beyond first base. That would have been awkward."

Sam grabbed Gabriel's face and planted the eighth kiss on him before Dean could look away.

"Cas and Phoebe are good now?" Sam asked.

"Yuppers."

"We're done then."

"Not quite. You've still got an occult summoning circle to dismantle before someone accidentally conjures up an evil raccoon or something. If you ask _very nicely_ , I'll show you where it is."


	23. Outside on the sidewalk …

Gabriel listed off hot celebrities and offered to turn into them if Sam liked. Sam kept saying no even if a few of them were intriguing. _Rihanna? That would be … no, that would be wrong._ Making out with the likeness of a real human being who hadn't given consent, that was creepy. That was like leaked nude photos in 3D. No.

Phoebe and Hector confirmed that they had their memories back. Hector didn't require any explanations, saying he remembered it all, even if what his body was doing without him felt surreal and dreamlike. His clearest experience was being in Joe's body selling cars and he was anxious to get back to the dealership and make sure that Joe didn't screw him out of his commissions.

"So, um, I'm really sorry about the, um," Dean glanced over Phoebe's shoulder at her dad. He was obviously opting not to voice the details.

"It's okay. We're good. When you didn't know, you didn't know. And when you did know, you were a gentlemen. And I really appreciate that, even if I am also a little conflicted about it, because, damn." Phoebe bit her lip and gave him the once over. "So, uh, anyway, Dad and I need to get going. We need to hit the mall. He didn't buy a baby gift for my cousin yet either. We'll drop Hector off on the way."

"Okay, uh, take care!"

Dean drove and Gabriel called shotgun, which left Sam in the back with Cas.

"How ya doing?" he asked. Castiel turned away and looked out the window without saying anything.


	24. At the nature center …

The nature center was on the edge of town, complete with a parking lot and several buildings full of informational displays. Castiel followed behind as Gabriel led them out on one of the well-marked hiking trails. Being a weekday, it was not excessively busy, but the area was clearly well-travelled and the boys' "summoning circle" turned out to be remarkably close to the main path. It was good that they were going to destroy it now before anyone accidentally caused harm. He was annoyed that his brother had not destroyed the circle when he'd first arrived in town, but Gabriel had a melodramatic sense of symbolism and he insisted it wasn't "his place" to destroy something designed to summon him … or rather his kind … or rather the kind of entity he pretended to be.

It was a complex web of pretense. Was Gabriel an archangel who pretended to be a trickster? Or had he in some way transformed himself over the centuries and _become_ a trickster god?

The most thorough way to destroy the circle was fire, but that would alarm the other visitors, so Castiel invoked an invisibility shield blocking them from view. Anyone walking along the path would only see trees and poison ivy. 

Dean set the fire. He seemed to like that part. Castiel enjoyed seeing Dean happy. Perhaps _happy_ wasn't the right word for Dean's mood at the moment, but he was finding purpose in his actions and sometimes that was as close as Dean got.

"The fat lady hasn't sung yet, you know," Gabriel said as they watched the flames destroy all the feathers and sticks and strings that the boys had fashioned into pseudo-satanic shapes.

Dean glared and Castiel watched him flex his fingers. Dean obviously knew he was no match for Gabriel, but the urge to resort to violence was clear.

"Don't worry," Gabriel continued. "This part is easy. No magic. I promise. Although, I take it back, it won't be easy. What you have to do now is one of the hardest things for you. You have to talk."

"Excuse me?" Dean said, still glaring.

"You two," Gabriel said. "Need to talk. To each other. With words."

Suddenly a clearing appeared, spreading out from the dying embers of the fire which turned green and became grass. Next a cottage seemed to grow out of the ground.

"There's a pancake place over by the freeway. Sam and I will meet you there for breakfast. You'll see the door in the morning. In the meantime, _talk_ … or, hell, fucking's good too, but I still recommend talking. Whatever. It's up to you. Sam?"

Dean tried to protest, but Sam shrugged and said, "No, he's right. You two need to talk in private. See you tomorrow."

There was a door between two trees at the edge of the meadow and Sam followed Gabriel through it. It closed behind them and then was covered over in impenetrable vines.

Castiel looked at Dean who just threw his hands up and said, "What?"

Castiel walked into the cottage. It was one large room inside with a fireplace and a bed with a canopy. There was a table with a wine and cheese board, but no kitchen. To Castiel's embarrassment, he recognized a number of devices on the bedside table as sex toys. He ignored them and moved a chair so he could sit and look at the fire in the fireplace. Fire was a strangely beautiful thing. Painful and deadly, yet hypnotic. Almost appearing as a living being the way it danced.

He waited for Dean. He waited for morning. Eventually, the door would re-open and they would have pancakes with Sam. Gabriel would tire of his game, if he hadn't already, and leave. All Castiel had to do was wait.

He heard Dean's footsteps behind him and then the drag of the other chair. Dean set it opposite him and sat down. They watched the fire together in silence for a long time and then, to Castiel's surprise, Dean spoke.

"Apparently, there was never a love spell," Dean said.

"I had surmised as much," Castiel agreed, his eyes never leaving the flames.

"Deep down, I guess, I knew it was you," Dean said.

"You recognized something familiar," Castiel said. "I believe it's natural to respond to the familiar, especially in an unfamiliar setting. It's a known phenomenon where travelers are drawn to chain restaurants they would never patronize when home."

"No one eats at the Biggerson's in their own town," Dean agreed.

"You saw something familiar in a beautiful woman," Castiel continued. "It's natural that you mistook your feelings for love."

"I didn't mistake anything," Dean said and Castiel looked up and met his eyes. He felt trapped there. Dean's eyes were like their own kind of magic. It was always hard to look away. "Cas, I love you."

The whisper was so faint that Castiel almost thought he had imagined it, but Dean cleared his throat and went on. 

"I'm in love with you. In love. With you. You. Not the pretty woman with pink hair. Not the handsome guy with dreamy blue eyes. You. And I've never been in love with a disembodied wavelength of celestial intent before so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with this information."

"I am not currently disembodied," Castiel pointed out. "You think I'm handsome?"

"You're really … yeah … definitely."

"Good. Because I don't have my brother's power. I cannot be anyone else for you. This is the only vessel I have."

"I don't need you to be anyone else, Cas." Dean stared at his hands, playing with his own fingers. Dean was not normally a fidgeter. After several moments, he spoke up again. "Can I ask you something? You remember what it was like when Phoebe had your body?"

Castiel nodded. "The portions that involved excessive consumption of alcohol are a little … _tilted_ … but I still remember them.

"You kissed Sam."

"My apologies. Phoebe meant no harm."

" _And_ you were flirting with that other guy at the bar. Or, sorry, I mean _Phoebe_ was flirting … and talked about going nightclubbing and Gabriel hinted that that was also with guys … I … what I wanted to ask was … I know Phoebe was the one making those decisions, but … was it your body signalling … I mean …" 

Castiel eventually realized what Dean was getting at. "I am often sexually aroused by men, yes. Occasionally women as well. And sometimes for no discernible reason at all. My vessel's reflexes are surprising at times."

"So, uh, do you wanna?" Dean asked with a shy smile.

"Do I 'wanna' what?"

Dean rolled his eyes and then tilted his head in the direction of the bed. "Do you _wanna_?"

"Do _you_ 'wanna'?" Castiel countered.

"Only if you wanna," Dean said, looking even more hesitant.

Castiel smiled. "I wanna."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the point where anyone uninterested in the smut can walk away. There's no real plot after this chapter. Thanks for reading!


	25. Finally …

Dean stood up and Cas followed his lead. He took a small step forward and again Cas mimicked his movements. They inched closer until they were actually brushing against each other. Cas was only a little bit shorter so Dean barely had to tilt his head down to reach his mouth. It wasn't _technically_ their first kiss, but Dean was going to count it as such. It was the first time that he _knew_ he was kissing Cas. It was the first time he'd kissed _this_ mouth, steadied his hands on _this_ body, the familiar scent of Cas filling his head, making him dizzier than kissing "Phoebe" had.

And despite a lot of protests to the contrary, his body was having no trouble at all responding to a man's kiss. He pulled away just long enough to gasp, "Bed."

"Yes," Cas agreed between kisses.

They kiss-staggered to the bed. Dean lost his balance as soon as his legs hit the side of the bed and he quickly sat down to avoid a completely uncontrolled flail. Cas, amazingly, just dropped to his knees at Dean's feet and started unlacing Dean's boots. Dean had not expected Cas to be the practical one.

Dean unbuttoned his own shirt while Cas took care of the socks and shoes. He quickly lost the shirt and peeled off the T-shirt under it and then Cas reached for his fly. 

"Whoa, man. Let's get a few layers off of _you_."

There weren't that many layers to go. Cas was already only wearing a shirt and pants and Dean felt oddly cheated that he didn't get to unwrap the whole package. 

"Phoebe didn't lose your coat down a volcano or something, did she?" Dean asked as he unbuttoned Castiel's shirt.

Cas leaned in and kissed him, a wet, but slightly off-center smack that was a lot more exciting than it logically should have been. "I believe it's in a coat check in a Paris nightclub. I wouldn't worry about it."

Dean wasn't precisely _worried_ , but _next time_ … next time, Dean planned on peeling Cas down starting with the full uniform. Hell, there was no reason that the tie even had to come off.

"Where's your tie?" Dean asked.

"The tie is another story. I will likely require a new one."

And despite the distractions, Dean managed to get Castiel's shirt off. Somehow _Cas_ and _nipples_ were not concepts that he could wrap his mind around simultaneously. He kind of froze with his hands on Castiel's shoulders.

"Uh." Should he ask permission? Or just go for it?

"Is everything all right?" Cas asked.

"Mmm-hmm. Very, very all right. All kinds of right."

Cas went for Dean's fly again, but that was rushing things. "Kiss me?" Dean asked and it sounded a little pitiful to his own ear, but Cas smiled and obliged. 

Dean scooted farther back onto the bed and tugged Cas with him.

"It's just," Dean said, slipping one hand through Castiel's hair and momentarily forgetting what he was trying to say because _blue_ -blue really was his favorite color. "It's just, if we, if, if we go straight to the dicks, this won't last, um, _I_ won't last very long and I, I want this to last fucking forever."

Cas nodded his understanding and then started licking Dean's neck. They shifted a little so Cas was fully on top of Dean, his erection pressing against Dean's own, unmistakable despite all the layers of fabric. Dean immediately rethought the clothing issue. Because he was not going to last long either way and he'd prefer not to jizz in his pants given the choice.

"Changedmymind. Naked. Nakednow. Nownow. Naked. Somuchnaked."

And they were. And that was enough of a shock to actually slow Dean down a little.

"Dude, what did you do to my pants?" he gasped. "Let me guess. A coat check in Paris?"

"Bottom of a volcano," Cas growled throatily between licks and Dean shuddered. He hadn't heard Castiel's extra gruff voice in awhile and hadn't even realized he'd missed it. And, damn, he was humping an incredibly powerful celestial being and his pants weren't even in the room anymore—probably not in a volcano, but Castiel's sense of humor couldn't be trusted, so he wasn't entirely sure—and, just, holy fuck, this was actually happening. 

It was difficult, impossible really, to resist having a dick measuring contest under the circumstances. He lined their bodies up and, oh, yeah, Dean was definitely bigger. Not that a long penis was anything to be particularly boastful about; Dean just has some good DNA. But then he got one hand between them and, uh, that felt weird. Castiel's penis felt thicker in his hand. Okay, so call it a draw.

He started rocking his hips and Cas began to slide in opposition so their sweat-slick bodies were getting maximum glide, except … well, there was the good kind of friction and there was the chafing kind of friction. Dean glanced over at the bedside table and, yeah, in between the vibrators and dildos and more mysterious devices, there was a giant bottle of lube.

"Cas, can you reach the, uh." 

His brain had trouble finding the word and, in the meantime, Cas tried to fill in the blank.

"Would you like to use one of the sex toys?" Cas asked.

"Lube!" Dean blurted out. "I'm not putting a pink plastic dick up my butt before I've even had a chance to feel your actual dick up there!" _Shit._ Did he just volunteer to bottom?

Cas got the lube and then, sitting up on his heels, he squeezed lubricant over both of their penises. He closed the cap, but set the bottle down in easy reach. Dean was silent, with the exception of a faint moan, as Cas smeared the lube all over their dicks and, yeah, a little further back. Even as one part of his brain questioned whether this is what he wanted, Dean immediately spread his legs and curled one knee up to give Cas better access.

Cas ran both hands over Dean's cock and balls and then reached further behind and slid his fingers along Dean's anus. Dean moaned. He was dribbling pre-ejaculate now. He felt exposed and a little off-kilter, but completely turned on. Like this was possibly the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him.

"Would you like to be penetrated?" Cas asked calmly.

"Yes," Dean managed through gritted teeth. Cas was the exact opposite of good with dirty talk and it was _still_ hot as fuck.

Cas squeezed out more lube and then slipped a finger inside Dean's rectum. Dean was a little shocked at how easily it went in. He'd watched a gay porno once or twice, okay maybe more than twice, and they always made it seem like getting that first finger up there was a challenge. The people in the comment section always made it sound like that's how you could tell the difference between the real straight guys versus the gay guys who were just pretending that they were being seduced for the first time. Dean had even made a few experimental pokes in the shower over the years and it had never really worked. He had been thus reassured that his butt was an exclusively one-way valve. Castiel's lube-slicked finger was proving otherwise. 

Uh, _fingers were_ , plural. 

Okay. Different, but still okay. He could feel Castiel's fingers not just thrusting, but wriggling, perhaps trying to test if he was sufficiently stretched out.

"Dude, you watch gay porn?" Dean asked, suddenly wondering at Castiel's skill.

"No, but I have read all of the erotica that has ever been written, as well as instructional texts."

"You shouldn't believe everything you read," Dean said automatically, trying to wrap his mind around _all of the erotica that has ever been written_. Did that include the stuff Becky and her friends wrote about him and Sam? And what about _instructional texts_? Was Cas like some magic font of sexual knowledge now?

"You shouldn't believe everything that you watch either," Cas said, removing his fingers and leaving Dean feeling twitchy and desperate.

"Yeah, well, I mainly watch cartoons with aliens and shit. I never believe any of it anyway." There was one with this angel chick who had sex while flying through the clouds and when she came her eyes glowed. He'd gotten off to it, but he had no expectations of fuck-flying.

"Are you ready?" Cas asked and Dean was pretty sure that was the tip of Castiel's dick nudging at his ass now.

 _Physically?_ Yeah, he thought so. _Mentally?_ Not really at all. _Emotionally?_ Long fucking overdue. 

So it averaged out. "Yeah, man, give it to me."

Cas slowly pushed his cock inside.

Castiel's cock. Inside. Dean.

 _He's fucking me,_ Dean thought in disjoined flashes. _I'm being fucked. Cas is fucking me and I like it._

"I love you," he whispered and even he couldn't deny that it was really more of a whimper. He could feel his eyes tearing up. "I love you so much, man. I need you to understand that."

"I understand," Cas said, keeping to a slow pace and kissing Dean gently on the lips.

"I don't trust people easily," Dean said.

"Understatement."

"So this is huge. I just want to make sure you know that."

"I know." 

Castiel was like a machine … a _mills of God_ kind of machine. No human could fuck that slow and steady. No stuttering or jerking, just a constant unbroken rhythm. And Dean liked it slow. He really did. But there was _slow_ and there was _watching paint dry_.

"Cas," Dean breathed, sliding his hands all over Castiel's back. "You can go a little faster. It's okay."

Cas didn't alter his pace by a millisecond. "The general consensus among those who have studied the phenomenon seems to be that a constant rhythm yields the best results."

"Fuck consensus!" Dean surrendered the last of his dignity and started writhing around, clutching at Castiel's hips with his feet and thrusting his pelvis up to impale himself. "Come on, man, the bottom should not have to do this much work."

"You require more friction?

"Yes!"

Cas shifted and sat back on his heels, lifting Dean's pelvis up off the bed entirely. This took Castiel's back and his lovely shoulder blades—which Dean had developed a sudden, but irrevocable, fondness for—out of Dean's reach, but now Castiel's cock was thrusting _right_ up against Dean's prostate and he was going at least a little bit faster.

"Is this position more satisfactory?"

"Oh, yeah." 

Dean had never really understood the big deal about prostates. Obviously a lot of people were into that kind of thing, and Dean himself definitely noticed that just sometimes, when he took an especially solid dump, that there was something up in there that was a little _sensitive_ which only made sense if you thought of the prostate gland as basically being the root of the penis. But if the prostate was the _root_ part, it still made more sense to focus your attention on the _tree_ part.

"What are the testicles in this metaphor?" Cas asked.

"I did _not_ say that out loud," Dean said. "Get out of my head."

"You are praying very loudly. It's not something I can block."

That … that had implications. "Cas, can you hear me _every_ time I have sex?"

"I doubt I have been privy to every orgasm," Cas said without breaking stride or sounding out of breath or even the tiniest bit uncomfortable with the conversation. "However, you are definitely prone to spontaneous prayer during your more intense moments of sexual release."

"Does that include …?" Dean trailed off, covering his eyes with one hand. Either Cas was going to get it or he wasn't and Dean didn't feel like explaining.

"Masturbation? Yes. In fact, I believe you are even more prone to prayer during your sessions of self-pleasure."

 _Crap._ Sex with Cas involved a lot more face-palming than seemed possible.

"Sometimes you mention my name."

And _of course_ Cas couldn't just gloss over that.

"I had always assumed that you had adopted it as a form of blasphemy, but I am reconsidering that assumption under the current circumstances."

"Have I mentioned how much you utterly suck at dirty talk?" Dean asked. He opened his eyes and was immediately distracted by how gorgeous Cas was naked. His stomach was taut with the effort of thrusting. As unmoved as he sounded, his _vessel_ at least was sweating and flushed. And Cas was smiling at him. Jesus, he was pretty when he smiled.

Cas reached down and began stroking Dean off so that he was getting it root _and_ tree. 

"I believe that next time I would enjoy stimulating you orally. Is that something you would like?"

Dean answered by shooting his load with a choked, "Fuck!"

Dean was a little dizzy and a lot happy, but also a little concerned about this next step. He'd done anal with a chick once because she was squeamish about her period and wouldn't listen when Dean said a little blood didn't really bother him. She'd insisted on keeping her tampon in and only letting him in the back door, which Dean was also fine with. You took it where you could get it when you spent so much time on the road. But when they were done and he pulled out, she hadn't been able to control her reflexes and suddenly there was something a lot nastier than blood on the motel sheets.

She'd been mortified and locked herself in the bathroom while Dean had tried to reassure her that shit happens, y'know, literally sometimes. He'd bundled up the soiled sheets along with the used condom and chucked it in the dumpster behind the motel. Telling her that it wasn't nearly as gross as changing Sam's diaper hadn't placated her at all. It was true though; that kid had produced some kind of toxic poop that reeked to high heaven and half the time it was _green_ even when he swore that the boy hadn't eaten anything green for days.

She left without leaving her phone number and Dean explained the bare mattress to Sam with a truthful, but incomplete, explanation of, "Chick was on her period. Got messy."

He made sure to leer when he made eye contact, too, but rather than shock his brother, problem-solving college boy just nodded and said, "You should have put down a towel first. Takes care of the wet spot, too."

So now here was Dean on the opposite side of a similar situation and, glancing around, it did not appear that Gabriel had been thoughtful enough to include a toilet or shower along with the sex toys and lube.

"Uh, Cas ... "

"Not a problem," Cas said. He pulled out gently and his cock was clean and dry, all of Dean's splooge was gone as well, and Dean didn't feel remotely inclined to take a dump despite what had felt like a building urge just moments ago. Which sort of implied ...

"Dude, did you just do like magical cleanup from the _inside_?"

"Yes. You seemed concerned about the contents of your colon so I took care of it for you."

"Uh, thanks?"

"You're most welcome."

Cas lay down next to him and snuggled closer and, being Cas, stared into his eyes. Dean was so hypnotized, he almost didn't look down in time to see it. The awareness that Cas hadn't gotten off yet drew his eyes down and, even as he was reaching for Castiel's cock, he watched it soften and shrink and change color until it looked like Cas had never had sex or even been aroused in the first place.

"Dude, what the hell?"

"Hmm?" Cas seemed completely unconcerned.

"Your erection?"

"Oh, it was uncomfortable, so I healed it," Cas said. "Erections are rather intriguing when they first occur, but they become increasingly distracting and uncomfortable as time passes. That was one of the annoyances of my time as a human. Erections take so long to dissipate on their own."

"Dissipate? What? You don't just _heal_ an erection! Cas, I'm _right here_. I could have taken care of that _for_ you. The whole _point_ of sex is taking care of that for each other. I got mine. It's your turn."

"I don't require a turn. I'm happy to have facilitated your orgasm. _That_ was the point."

"No, dude, no. It's supposed to be mutual. You're supposed to come, too."

"Would it make you feel better if I ejaculated?" Cas asked.

"Yes!"

Except it didn't. At all. It was the creepiest thing Dean had ever seen. 

Castiel's cock lengthened and purpled and twitched to fullness and then his balls tightened up and semen shot out of the end and in a few seconds he was back to his neutral pre-sex state and the sheets were clean again.

"What was that?!"

"You wanted to see my vessel ejaculate, so I did," Cas said. "Was something wrong? Would you like me to do it differently?"

"That ... what? ... Cas, it's not about ejaculating. It's about _getting off_. That didn't look _anything_ like getting off to me."

"Ah, I see the source of the misunderstanding now. You are distressed that I did not achieve orgasm. I can assure you that it is in no way a reflection upon you. I found this experience very pleasurable and hope to do it again many times."

"But we're not _done_. This _experience_ isn't over. Please, man, come on, let me get you off. Please."

"I'm sorry, Dean. I don't believe that's possible."

Cas looked sad and Dean didn't understand how this had gone from the most blissful moment of his life to feeling so desperate and empty.

"What?"

"I have only achieved orgasm a handful of times and all of those were when I was human. And to be honest, I found the experience did not live up to the hyperbole in literature. My forays into masturbation all left me feeling more lonely than ever. My one successful orgasm with a woman led to my being stabbed, so I can't say that ended well either, though I imagine without the stabbing part I would remember it more fondly."

"But ... dude, an angel can do anything a human can do, right? Have you even tried?"

"Repeatedly with Daphne," Cas said and it took Dean a moment to even remember who Daphne was. "Of course, I didn't know I was an angel at the time, but with hindsight I now realize that that was the problem."

"You're not still married to Daphne, are you?" Dean asked, suddenly a bit worried about the technicalities of angel divorce.

"Our union was never legally binding," Cas said. "I had no identifying papers that would have made formalizing our marriage possible, but symbolically Daphne felt better about our joining when we called it a marriage. And I did visit her after I regained my memory and explained that our relationship could not continue. As romantic breakups go, I believe it was very traditional. She threw things at me."

"So you had sex with Daphne, but _never_ got off from it?"

"There is what from your perspective might be described as a hyperawareness of reality that comes with angelic perspective. Orgasm on the other hand has been described by some poets as a disconnect from reality, a moment when the soul is untethered from anything outside of that bubble in time and space." Cas wrinkled his nose in a grumpy yet defiant sort of way and added, "I suppose in human terms, you would label me 'too uptight' to achieve orgasm."

Dean sat up and stared at Cas in disbelief.

"No. I don't accept this. If I'd never met Balthazar or Gabriel, I might believe you. But there is no way that angels are just frigid."

"Gabriel has powers that I can't begin to understand," Castiel protested.

"And Balthazar?"

"So maybe it's not angels in general. Perhaps it's just me. Perhaps I'm the only one who is defective. I do not know. There are no celestial sex ed classes." Cas was clearly angry now and Dean felt like shit for being the cause. He'd never meant to imply Cas was _defective_. "I don't know how to explain it to you and I do not believe you would appreciate being shown."

"You can show me?" Dean asked, perking up at the idea. Dean hated arguing things out in metaphors. He was a doer not a talker. "Show me."

"You have already expressed severe displeasure with teleportation," Cas pointed out. "The concept is not dissimilar. You would not like it."

"Show me," Dean repeated.

Cas sighed and reached for Dean's forehead and ... and ... Castiel's hand was covered in skin cells over a thicker epidermal layer on top of fascia and muscle and bone and blood, each made of their own specialized cells, each made up of chemical compounds of molecules that were built out of atoms and inside each atom was a nucleus and inside each nucleus there were protons and neutrons and inside of _those_ were quarks. The entire world was filled with buzzing electrons that never, ever stopped moving and between them there was so much empty space that Dean could _see_ how easy it would be to pass his hand through the most solid object. It was all a matter of lining up the gaps between electrons just so.

"Whoa," he said. He wasn't entirely sure who _he_ was though. _He_ was 37,438,192,569 individual human cells and a few trillion bacteria cells as well which weren't actually human but still were—in some way the he didn't _understand_ but was positive was _true_ —an integral part of Dean Winchester.

"You can see how it can be distracting," Cas said.

Castiel's eyes were reflecting light with a wavelength of 477 nanometers. It _was_ distracting, but it was also still ... pretty.

Dean reached out and ran his hands through Castiel's hair and then he did it again this time running his hands _through_ the hairs, feeling them almost tickle as they passed through his bones.

"Dean?" Cas sounded suddenly unsure of himself.

"This is fucked up," Dean whispered. "This doesn't hurt, does it?" He ran his finger down the outside of Castiel's skull and traced the ligaments of his temporomandibular joint.

"It's ... fine," Cas said. "Just ... odd."

"Yeah," Dean agreed and then slid his hand down into Castiel's chest. He wrapped his fingers gently around the smooth muscles of his heart and felt that rapid flutter of his increasing heartbeat. "Where are _you_ in here?"

"I'm not sure I understand the question."

"Gabriel said he left everybody's brains where they were. And he suppressed everyone's memories so you can't say that _that's_ what he swapped out. And your grace stayed with the old body. But even then, it was definitely _you_ that was walking around as Phoebe. Not your body or your grace or your brain or your memories, but still you. I'm trying to figure out what _you_ are."

"That sounds like a question for a philosopher or a poet," Cas observed, tracing his own finger down Dean's sternum and ending in his guts below and behind his navel. "Your center of gravity is here. Though the heart is traditionally considered the seat of courage and love and, in the modern view, the brain is seen as the location of self, many older beliefs place the core of human essence in the guts. It makes sense as on a daily basis 'gut feelings' play a crucial role in a person's life choices. And historically, without medical intervention a gut wound was more likely to prove fatal than even a head or chest wound."

"The question isn't limited to 'human' essence," Dean pointed out, but he poked inside Castiel's belly button anyway.

Cas ran his hand over the surface of Dean's chest and belly. "Not to discourage your curiosity, but I should point out that skin cells are really ideally suited to processing tactile input."

"Uh, huh," Dean agreed, but his focus was on the space between the electrons that hummed around Castiel's center of gravity. It was obviously completely dark inside his body, but Dean could almost sense a cloud of light bouncing around in 477 nanometer wavelengths.

"You are romanticizing the color of Jimmy Novak's eyes," Cas told him. "There is no such thing happening inside my bowels."

"Didn't I tell you to get out of my head," Dean said, but he smiled all the same. He felt strangely light now that he was aware of all the empty space between his atomic particles.

"You have to stop praying," Cas panted. "I can't block you out while you pray."

Oh and _there_ was an idea. _I love you,_ he thought as loudly as he could. 

"You said this was like teleporting," Dean said out loud. "How?"

"Only that in the millisecond between geographical locations you are aware of your composite parts. I assumed that that was what you found disconcerting."

Dean stopped groping at Castiel's internal organs and focused on his skin cells as Cas had suggested. He was aware of every nerve ending and was pleased when Cas twitched slightly under his fingertips. Maintaining solidity now seemed like the miracle, the void between electrons somehow forming a magical forcefield that shouldn't feel like flesh at all but did.

"This is what it's like for you all the time? Every day?"

Cas nodded. "This is normal for me."

"So when you look at me, you just see a bunch of spinning subatomic particles?"

"Not 'just'. I see all of you. And all of it is beautiful. The light that reflects off of your eyes. The pattern of your freckles. The bow of your femurs. The scar beneath your eye that's only visible when you've gone too long without sleep. The way your mouth twitches when you smile."

Dean snuggled back down into Castiel's arms and kissed him gently. "Do you like this? Does this feel good to you?"

"Yes."

"Good." _I love you and what I pray for more than anything is for you to be happy._

Cas smiled. Message received.

"So if you're in the mood to answer prayers …"

"What else did you have in mind?" Cas asked.

And Dean had no idea how to put it into words, but he prayed it with all his heart regardless. It involved warmth and safety and cuddles and it also involved lightness and floating and freedom. It was subatomic particles spinning in a void and it was solid flesh, sweaty and flushed. It was the color blue and a musical instrument that might have been a cello. Dean was a little unclear about such details.

He kissed Cas and the world got a little fuzzy around the edges as he lost the ability to focus on anything but Castiel's lips. 

"Let go," he whispered. "Fly with me."


	26. Like a prayer …

Dean Winchester was not the best communicator even under ideal circumstances. 

He and Sam had a few key phrases worked out and sometimes they seemed to interpret each other's meanings through a complicated series of eyerolls and grunts that Castiel had never quite managed to decipher.

Castiel was not clear at all whether "fly" was intended as a metaphor for orgasm, an indication that Dean wished to be teleported somewhere, or if he was literally making a request for levitation.

Dean kissed him, fully occupying both of their mouths and leaving only Dean's prayers to assist Castiel in understanding what Dean wanted. It was confusing, but also quite amazing. He'd never felt this close to Dean before. 

Dean's invocations were typically incidental—such as instinctively praying for Sam's safety—or direct requests along the lines of, "Yo, featherbutt, check your text messages once in awhile, wouldya?" But now Dean was deliberately and vividly inundating him with thoughts and images and feelings and none of them seemed to be a request for anything. 

_love, happiness, belonging, joy, peace, sanctuary, passion, blue, music, shoulder blades, fingers, family, home, flight, molecules, infinity, pie, freedom, floating, embraces, kisses, ecstasy, orgasm, skin cells, nerve endings, testicles, tenderness, intimacy, eyes, togetherness, affection, attachment, bonding, trenchcoat, harmony, unity, fusion, synthesis, tongues, electrons, blending, union, marriage, forgiveness, rest, eternity, euphoria_

None of it quite made sense and only some of it was even coming through in the form of words, but it overwhelmed and engulfed him in a feeling of such _rightness_.

"I love you," he whispered when Dean came up for air.

"Does this feel good?" Dean asked, without so much as a break in the stream of prayers. "Do you like this?" He ran his hands along the surface of Castiel's skin. Castiel felt his vessel flushing in response. His penis reacted as well, again filling with blood and thickening. 

This part was easy and he feared he was giving Dean false hope, but he answered truthfully. "It feels wonderful."

"You're okay with this?" Dean asked. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"I enjoy your touch immensely," Cas said. "I just don't want to disappoint you if—" 

"Shhhh."

_floating, peace, calmness, happiness, joy, home, love, forgiveness, acceptance, rest, sanctuary, belonging_

He lost focus for a moment and had to release Dean from the extended awareness that he'd granted him. Dean whimpered slightly at the loss, but then only renewed his efforts. He began to lick his way down Castiel's body and his prayers only grew stronger as if he feared Castiel might not hear him now.

_love, passion, music, shoulder blades, fingers, family, flight, molecules, infinity, love, blue, electrons, sex, pie, love, freedom, embraces, kisses, ecstasy, love, orgasm, skin cells, nerve endings, cock, love, tenderness, intimacy, eyes, affection, attachment, bonding, love, tie, trenchcoat, harmony, unity, fusion, synthesis, love, tongues, blending, union, eternity, fucking, euphoria, love, love, love, love_

Castiel began to lose himself in the waves of emotion that Dean was flooding him with. He also made a mental note to retrieve his coat. He wasn't sure why it was important, but Dean had few familiar things in his life and seemed to cling to his own traditions.

Dean's tongue licked at his navel as if he thought he might be able, with focus, to again interlock the spaces between their atoms. Castiel gasped in shock as his vessel suddenly bucked without any conscious direction from him to do so. There were unexpected connections between the nerves in his navel and his genitals. 

"Good?" Dean asked.

"I … yes … oh." 

Dean added belly buttons to his list of prayers and a wordless sense of smugness accompanied it. 

_Oh._

He finally understood what Dean was doing and for a brief moment he feared that the knowledge would sabotage Dean's beautiful plan. But the realization of what Dean was doing _for him_ … the amount of effort he was putting into his constant litany … the vulnerability required … Castiel was already cresting the wave before he even felt Dean's tongue on the head of his cock.

"Dean!"

_I've got you, tiger._

Castiel would ask later why _tiger_ ; the _I've got you_ was enough for now.

He spilled his seed into Dean's mouth and this time it was not a mere biological reflex. It was an orgasm. He had _gotten off_ as Dean would put it. 

"Apparently, I was wrong," Castiel gasped as Dean gently licked him clean. "I am capable of orgasms after all."

"Sometimes it's good to be wrong," Dean murmured.

Dean wrapped them up in the blankets and Castiel pet his hair as Dean fell asleep. He wasn't sure if Dean had forgotten that he himself did not sleep or if he was just worried Castiel would get cold without clothing or if there was a deeper meaning to being wrapped up together like a giant burrito. Possibly all of the above.

Castiel was content to hold Dean until morning.


	27. The morning after with pancakes …

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter!

In the morning, Cas retrieved their clothing from wherever, including his coat and a silver-blue tie that Dean had never seen before.

They'd hiked all the way back to the parking lot before it even occurred to Dean that the car wouldn't be there. 

"They took my car."

Cas only nodded.

"They. Took. My. Car."

"Isn't it—from a practical standpoint—Sam's car as well?"

Cas did not understand how this worked, but then Cas was a little brother wasn't he? And his big brothers—one of whom had just participated in the _theft of Dean's car_ —were kind of dicks. So it _probably_ wasn't a good idea to begin day one of their new … _thing_ … having a fight about the privilege of the first born.

"Whatever. Just go ahead and zap us there."

"Are you sure?" Cas asked. "We could call a taxi if you prefer."

"I'm hungry. I don't have time for this." Also, he needed to make sure Sam hadn't done anything weird to the car. Sam never remembered to set the parking brake.

Cas stepped close, like _really_ close and for a moment Dean forgot why and just leaned in and kissed him and it was still every bit as dizzying. Just wow. They were a thing. And they were about to go have breakfast with Sam who _knew_ they were a thing and that was going to be … awkward. _Shit._

There was a chance that Sam was going to be mature enough to not make a big deal about this. 

Yeah.

Like a snowflake's chance in hell.

"Or we could just abandon the car to Sam and run away to the Bahamas."

"You don't mean that," Cas said.

"No. Tempting, but no."

"Pancake place?" Cas asked.

" _Parking lot_ of the pancake house," Dean agreed.

And for just the tiniest sliver of a second Dean was aware of every hadron and lepton between the nature center and the pancake place and it should have been really upsetting. It had always been upsetting when he'd been angel-zapped somewhere before. But now it … it made him vaguely horny in a way it probably shouldn't. 

"When we get back to the bunker, we are going to need _a lot_ of alone time," Dean said. 

Cas nodded solemnly.

He unlocked the Impala—at least Sam remembered to lock it—and checked the parking brake, which, of course, he had to set. He readjusted the seat and mirrors while he was at it. He was about to turn the key and check the radio, but Cas was squinting at him in a very judgemental sort of way.

"Right, breakfast."

They walked in the diner and Dean looked around, expecting Sam to be alone by now. Gabriel didn't seem like the sort to hang around long after the punchline. 

He was wrong. Sam was not alone.

Daenerys Targaryen waved at him from a booth on the far side of the restaurant. Like _Daenerys Targaryen_ —straight up Mother of Dragons, in one of Sam's old plaid shirts—was waving at him from across the pancake house. Sam turned around and made eye contact, but just gave him one of his eyebrow shrugs like Daenerys Stormborn the Unburnt wearing one his flannel shirts in a Michigan pancake house was just the sort of thing that sometimes happened.

He crossed the room and slid into the booth next to Sam. Cas took the seat next to … well, Gabriel was the obvious bet. Up close the resemblance to actress Emilia Clarke was less clear though she definitely favored her in the eyebrows. Her hair was even more silvery than he expected and her eyes were _purple_.

"Your eyes are purple," he said because his brain just couldn't find an extra gear. 

She nodded. "Apparently, TV-show-Daenerys is creepy and invasive, but book-Daenerys is fair game. Your brother's rules are a little hard to sort out sometimes."

Sam ignored Gabriel and asked Cas, "So, you guys _talked_ last night? Everything okay now?"

"Everything is wonderful," Cas answered with a glowing smile that was a little mortifying considering all the things he was saying without saying.

"Weren't you dead?" Dean asked Gabriel.

"Existentially complicated," she said. "I got better."

Cas frowned at his brother … sister? … and said, "You have evolved."

"What about you?" Dean nudged Sam in the ribs. Working up an over-serious tone, he asked, "Sam, did you have sex with a dragon last night?"

The joke fell completely flat when Sam blushed and ducked his head and began cutting his pancakes into needlessly small pieces with the laser focus of a neurosurgeon. 

Dean gaped and looked to Gabriel who shrugged and said, "I don't kiss and tell."

"Man, I can't believe I was embarrassed about the angel fucking."

"Ha!" Gabriel shouted, to the startlement of waitress who was just walking over with two more menus. "High five!"

Cas hesitantly high-fived Gabriel, while Sam slunk even lower in his seat.

"Which dragon?" Dean asked, ignoring the waitress, leaving Cas to accept both of the menus.

"Oh, my God, we are _not_ talking about this," Sam said.

"I want to hear _all_ about the angel fucking," Gabriel said.

"I don't kiss and tell," Cas echoed, with a proud tilt of his chin.

"No, seriously, which dragon?"

"I liked you better when you were repressed," Sam said.

  
♥ ♥ ♥  
THE END  
♥ ♥ ♥  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are love!


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